


The Zoo

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, First Meeting, First Time, Flirting, Friendship, Kevin POV, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Pack Family, Werewolves in Captivity, Zoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-08 23:29:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 37,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1960236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world that belongs to the leviathan, Kevin is the newest arrival at a zoo’s werewolf enclosure. There he struggles to find his place in a pack that is unlike any he’d been taught to expect, and along the way learns some new things about himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **This fic contains** : Werewolves in captivity, normalized voyeurism, consent issues due to heats/ruts, mention of knotting, non-penetrative werewolf sex where one individual is human-shaped and the other is not, talk of the hunting and eating of smaller animals.
> 
>  **Other characters** : Dean Winchester, Meg Masters, Castiel, Charlie Bradbury, Jody Mills, Chuck Shurley, Krissy Chambers, Aaron Bass, Linda Tran.
> 
> There is [art by disreputabled0g](http://disreputabled0g.livejournal.com/2187.html), check it out!
> 
> Written for the 2014 SPN/J2 Big Bang. Many thanks to thetrollingchaos and flyingcatstiel for looking this story over. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Kevin thinks he’s been inside this carriage container for four days now.

That’s only an estimate, which is as good he can manage when his senses are all messed up from being stuck inside a metal box where everything looks, smells and sounds foreign. They only familiar thing they’ve left him is his blanket. Mom’s scent is all over it but it’s days old now, fading away like the fog in Kevin’s head is easing up. Kevin’s mostly been keeping to one corner of the container, stiff from staying four-legged since they took him.

It’s not as though Kevin was completely unprepared for this. Mom told him it was likely to happen someday, that packs often get moved or shuffled around, and that he should know what to do when that happens. That said, even Mom was surprised when they came for him the way they did, with their tranquilizer guns. It’s not as though Kevin’s a problem wolf that needs to be knocked out to handle. He’s a star pupil, and hasn’t bitten anyone. That one time he did as a pup doesn’t count. He didn’t know that vaccination shots hurt, okay?

But here he is. His container is comfortable, clean and well-stocked. It even almost feels like the capsules of home (not _home_ , not anymore) with its white surfaces and ceiling lights, but this one is moving. He’s being transported.

There are other wolves nearby. Kevin hasn’t seen them, but he can smell them, and they smell wrong. A part of Kevin thinks the wrongness may be because he’s too used to the smells of the capsules – of Mom and Channing and the others of their pack – so everyone else would be strange by default. But the more he inhales the more the wrongness deepens, casting new layers of scent information that he can’t dismiss as a fluke. He’s pretty sure wolves should not smell like metal fire.

 _Find the leader_ , Mom used to tell him. _If they don’t have one, figure out the hierarchy._

It’s hard to focus on those old lessons now that Kevin’s actually here. The travelling has made him dizzy, thirsty and tired, and it’s honestly a miracle that he can smell the nearby wolves at all.

After days of constant movement, the container comes to a shuddering halt. Kevin perks his ears up in the sudden silence, picking up movement and faint voices outside.

He still hasn’t gotten used to the way gods speak; their language seems to have no syllables whatsoever, and sounds more like air rumbling through hollow space than actual voices. The tones are easier to make out, though, and these voices are relaxed, casual, non-aggressive.

There’s a faint hiss, and then the container door starts to open.

Logically, Kevin knows he should be cautious and assess his new location before even stepping out.

He _would_ have, honestly, except there’s grass just beyond the edge of the container. Actual grass growing on actual _soil_ , not like the potted grass they’d been given to chew on back in the capsules. Here the whole freaking floor is a living mat to run on, which is just nuts.

Something primal in Kevin’s brain switches on – _frolic?_ Frolic! He bounds out of the container, yipping when the grass tickles his paws. He bounces a couple of times to test that the ground is solid, and then freezes.

There is another container nearby, its doors also open. Two wolves step out of it, upright and in their two-legged forms. If they smelled wrong before, it’s more obvious now.

“Well, hello,” says the female wolf. “New puppy.”

She smells strange by herself, but it’s the second wolf, the male wolf, who has the fur at the back of Kevin’s neck standing up. He smiles at Kevin, and although it’s not a threatening smile, when Kevin takes a deep breath he can smell ash and metal and fire – unliving things that should not be able to have a wolf shape.

“Hello,” the wolf says.

Kevin panics. It’s not his finest moment, but after days of being cooped up and scared and angry it’s almost a relief when the age-old instinct to flee grips Kevin’s legs and sends him bolting.

Running is usually a safe bet, except where this is new, foreign territory and Kevin has no idea where he’s going aside from _away_. His legs scream their relief at the exertion, but then he realizes there are also trees here, actually tall trees with thick trunks and branches and leaves, with bushes underneath and it sounds like there’s running water somewhere nearby. There are also wolves living here, _big_ wolves! Two – no, three of them, partially hidden by the trees.

Kevin’s senses are swamped, too much at once, too much to process, everything smells new and he’s gone and fucking left Mom’s blanket behind in the container. _Dammit._

Something huge is chasing him.

A bear? Mom told him about bears, creatures that can go two-legged without shifting. Or maybe it’s a wendigo, those are about the right size. Would they even keep wendigo and wolves in the same enclosure? Mom said that wolves are always kept separate from other species, but times change and maybe Kevin’s part of some brand new interspecies mingling program.

Is he an apex predator here? He hopes he’s an apex predator here. It would be a huge shame if he died on his first day.

Kevin zigzags wildly through the bushes, yelping when a freaking stream appears in his way. He leaps, wondering hysterically why they’d let water just run on the ground like that, surely that’s a waste of resources, isn’t it? What the hell kind of place is this?

The bear barrels into him, knocking Kevin sideways. He rolls, kicking his legs wildly until his brain processes that he’s only kicking air.

There is a predator nearby, but he’s sitting on his haunches instead of mauling Kevin for being stupid. It’s surprising that he’s just a wolf, with a gleaming brown coat and all the correct wolf parts. He’s even wearing a belt similar to Kevin’s – the only difference is that the strap across his torso has little pockets on it, presumably for carrying things, and the loin-wrap is almost down to his knees, with a little slit to allow the tail to come through. His jaws are closed but his teeth must be as huge as the rest of him, and no wonder Kevin thought he was a bear. He had no idea wolves came in that size.

Kevin slowly rolls over on to his belly, crouched low, ears back and watchful of the other wolf in trying to figure out the protocol of what to do next. The wolf shakes his mane and arches his back, fur drawing in to skin and muzzle retreating into his second face.

The wolf himself is just as huge two-legged as he was with four.  “Hey, you okay?” he says, his voice quieter than Kevin thought it would be. Kevin nods, and the wolf offers a reassuring smile. “Welcome to the enclave. We’re all wolves here, you’re safe.”

Kevin is about to ask what the hell the enclave is when he remembers he’s still four-legged. He pulls in and flexes, his muscles resisting a little from underuse. Eventually his other face eases out, along with the matching voice box. “What...” he coughs. “What’s the enclave?”

“This place.” He gestures to their surroundings with a jerk of his head. Kevin doesn’t follow the suggestion, instead keeping his eyes firmly on the wolf. “I’m Sam.”

Kevin’s still low to the ground, cautious and wary, despite this wolf smelling more normal than the other two. “Kevin.”

“Nice to meet you, Kevin.”

“Two other wolves arrived with me. They were... strange. Especially the guy.”

Sam unfolds himself, standing up and up and all the way up, which makes Kevin feel even tinier. Sam’s nostrils flare when he inhales. “We know them. They’re okay.”

That statement is supposed to be comforting but Sam’s simple matter-of-factness drives the breath from Kevin’s lungs. After four days on high alert it sinks in that that he’s never going to back to the capsules, that this is his home now, that wolves with hands like dinner bowls are _normal_ and wolves that smell like fire are supposed to be _okay._

A sudden bubbling hysteria itches in Kevin’s chest. This is the start of the rest of his life.

Kevin feels his lips draw back, and shrill whine escaping his teeth. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it. Well, he knows _why_ he’s doing it, he’s having a panic attack, but he doesn’t know why that means whining. He wants to go four-legged but his muscles hurt, everything hurts, he even lost Mom’s blanket.

The ground is stable, warm and grassy. Kevin flattens himself against it, still whining, fingers digging into the dirt.

“Do you want me to go?” Sam says carefully.

“Yes, please,” Kevin replies, voice muffled. “Since I’m _safe_.”

“It’s a good enclave. Plenty of resources. You should explore. Uh, when you’re ready, of course.”

“Okay.”

Kevin waits until Sam’s footsteps have faded to an acceptable distance, and then slowly curls into a ball. When he closes his eyes the smells and noises of this place – the _enclave_ – wash over him, little waves of information that remind him of the newness and permanence of this place.

No one bothers him. He can smell other wolves nearby but they keep their distance, their voices muffled by the stream and rustling of the trees. Kevin lies in the grass and mourns, and waits, and resettles himself. He imagines Mom’s hand scratching behind his ears, and waits for that memory to become soothing instead of sad.

His mouth is dry by the time he decides he’s done. Kevin sits up carefully, smacking his lips, and lifts his head up to study his surroundings just like Mom taught him to do. He can do this.

* * *

The enclave is very different from the clean, regular environment capsules. It’s surrounded by a massive circular wall made one-way glass, which is at least familiar, but here they’ve painted the glass natural colors as though to hide what they are. The colored glass also serves to make the enclave seem larger than it is, as though it’s but a section of a real forest. It’s quite impressive.

The plants all seem to be real and breathing. The water is fresh, the ground is springy. Most of the light is natural, coming in through the massive skylight that is the ceiling. The wolves here seem to actually live _inside_ this self-contained pocket of reproduced wilderness instead of only getting to visit it occasionally as a reward. Kevin spends some time wondering how many places like this exist in the world, how much they must cost to run, and whether Mom ever used to live in one herself. She always seemed to know more about organic resources than they’d ever had in the capsules.

All the other wolves seem to have congregated near the center of the enclave, farthest away from the walls. Kevin takes that as a chance to explore the walls themselves, noting the subtly hidden grooves in the glass, the little openings that allow the stream to come through, the little platforms which Kevin assumes are the places where the gods leave their food.

It’s pretty ingenious engineering, actually. Kevin is tempted to dig to see how deep the soil goes but he doesn’t because he’s had enough tranquilizers for a lifetime, thanks. It’s still an interesting thought, though.

There’s only so long that Kevin can circle the border of the enclave, and it’s high time he meet the pack. He stops by the narrow stream to check on his reflection, and gingerly washes his face. He’s already met three of the wolves (for a given value of ‘met’) and none of them were like the wolves he’s known. The rest of the pack’s going to be… well, it’s going to be something.

Kevin stands up, adjusts his belt, and starts walking.

He’s smart, he’s young, he’s strong. He can be – he _will_ be a valuable member of any pack lucky enough to have him. He learns quickly. He can be resourceful. He is terrified, but he can deal with it.

The wolves have congregated in a little clearing between the trees. There are a number of them – six, maybe seven. The wrong-smelling ones are there as well, but to Kevin’s surprise they’re the exceptions. Some of them seem to be arguing, but it doesn’t sound that heated. Regardless, Kevin can’t allow that to stop him from making a proper introduction.

The volume of voices drop a little as Kevin approaches, his scent making himself known. By the time he enters the clearing their faces are turned towards him. Some of them even look friendly.

“What’s this one?” a tall one asks.

“This is Kevin,” says Sam. “The… newer one.”

“Hello, Kevin!” says another, who introduces herself as Charlie. “You have excellent timing, the burgers are ready.”

“Great.” Kevin approaches tentatively, noting the way the wolves have settled themselves.

Sam and Charlie are sitting near their small fire in the center of the clearing, where they’re poking at little discs of packed meat that must their meal. The tall one, who Charlie says is Dean, is standing a little ways away, his hackles up. The two strange-smelling ones are Meg and Castiel, and they’re sitting the opposite side of the clearing from Dean. Meg’s smile is worrying, and Castiel barely notices him. Also standing is another female, Jody, who looks irritated and tired.

“We’re going to welcome the new wolf,” Jody announces, a little too loudly. “Sit down.”

Kevin has no idea who the alpha is. It might be Jody, but she isn’t the first to reach for the food. Charlie _is_ to first to reach for the food, but she immediately passes some to Kevin and doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to eat. Sam _does_ eat first, but he’s sitting on the floor, his legs tucked under him.

“This place is very nice,” Kevin ventures.

“Isn’t it?” Charlie says. “I’ve only been here a few months myself, but it’s pretty swank. Hey, we gotta pick your burrow, that’s gonna be exciting.”

“Ease up on the kid,” Meg says. She has a slight drawl when she speaks, plus the other wrongness that makes Kevin’s spine itch. “This is a lot to take in at once.”

“Can it, Meg,” Dean says. “Like you give a shit.”

“Dean,” Jody says warningly, “don’t you start—”

“Well,” Meg counters, “you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

“You gonna _make_ me?” Dean says.

“Guys, the burgers are getting cold!” Charlie exclaims.

It’s havoc. Kevin keeps himself as still as possible as he watches it unfold, more bewildered than frightened. Everyone’s yelling at everyone else, except for Sam, who is quietly eating his burger as though nothing is happening. Jody is waving her hands in Dean’s face, Meg is jumping up on to a log, and Castiel is declaring in his unreal metallic voice, “I don’t like conflict,” and flops onto the ground with his belly up, his black fur bursting out to reveal the most incongruously _enormous_ four-legged form Kevin has ever seen.

It ends when Charlie runs off, prompting Dean to curse and run after her. Jody turns her attentions to Meg, but Meg just ignores her and saunters off, forcing Jody to chase her. Castiel remains where he is, four legs in the air and tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

Kevin looks at Sam. “So that’s your pack?”

“That’s the pack,” Sam says.

Kevin looks down at the grilled piece of meat that is his burger, and then slowly brings it up to his mouth. It actually tastes pretty good.

“There’s no alpha here,” Kevin says.

“Yep.”

They eat. Eventually Castiel rolls back over on to his front and sets his head down onto the forepaws. He still smells like lightning and his four-legged form is unnaturally bigger than Sam’s, but he tilts his head and purrs ( _purrs?)_ when Sam scratches behind his ears. Elsewhere someone starts to howl, only to be interrupted with an angry shout of, “Hey!”

Okay. Kevin was expecting weirdness, but he thinks this is a weirdness that he can handle. There’s no alpha to please, which throws a whole bunch of Kevin’s plans out of whack, but he can figure this out given enough time. Heck, maybe these wolves would think _his_ old pack was weird if they met them.

“I’m going to check out the burrows now,” Kevin says, standing up. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing,” Sam says. “Have fun.”

* * *

At first Kevin keeps mostly to himself as he gets his bearings. Charlie and Sam make occasional efforts to get him to mix with the others but they let him be once they get the hint. Kevin needs to make his burrow comfortable, develop a clear map of the enclave in his mind, and figure out the place’s routine.

The underground burrows are all god-made and part of the terrain, which means that they’re strong and solid. There are a number of them all over the enclave, most of them unused and some containing artifacts of wolves long gone. There are pieces of cloth, scrap metal, chewed-up cardboard and so on, though these remnants are tiny, almost unnoticeable. The enclave is kept in very good shape.

Kevin chooses a burrow tucked under one of the large trees, and it’s a quick walk away from a wading pool. Most of the other wolves have taken burrows at the center of the enclave, which is understandable, but Kevin doesn’t mind being a little closer to the border. The burrow is clean, which makes it easy work to scent it up as Kevin’s home, and a couple of rocks and dried leaves top it off for décor. At night Kevin curls up at the far back of the burrow to sleep. Sometimes he hears the other wolves howl or talk, but there’s no loud brawling, no mechanical noises of the gods tinkering around just beyond the glass walls.

It’s pretty peaceful.

Then there’s the routine of the place. With the exception of Meg, all the wolves here are larger than Kevin, so it’s a sensible choice for him to spend some time up in the trees observing their ways. The gods deliver food once every two days, and the parcels are rationed out by either Sam, Dean or Jody. Every week or so there are non-food deliveries –boxes of cloth, leather and other trinkets, small live animals for them to hunt – much like the deliveries back in the capsules. Jody calls Kevin to participate when they distribute the supplies, and he picks some things to fix his belt and set up his burrow.

Sam likes to run, loping over the terrain with such huge strides that Kevin thinks it’s a wonder that Jody can keep pace. Dean prefers to canter instead of run, though he makes deliberate circles around the borders as though patrolling the enclave. Once or twice he’d come by Kevin’s tree to peer up at him curiously, almost impressed. As for Charlie, she seems pretty typical in her playing and rummaging, but she doesn’t let anyone into her burrow, not even Dean. Meg and Castiel tend to keep to themselves, much like Kevin does.

All adults, none with obvious seniority, and with no mated pairs that Kevin can detect. There hadn’t been mated pairs in Kevin’s old pack either, but most of them had been young excepting Mom, who’d been their alpha.

Then again, Kevin’s senses are all out of whack because of Meg and Castiel, so he wouldn’t be surprised if he misread them entirely. Like, of all the wolves here _Castiel’s_ the one who smells the oldest, but that can’t be right. Can it?

It’s only after a thorough reconnaissance that Kevin finally ventures out from his safe spots, following the stream to where Meg and Castiel have their neighboring burrows. Castiel is four-legged, pushing a couple of small stones around with his paws, while Meg is sitting on a log and combing her hair. She doesn’t pause her grooming when Kevin clears his throat.

“Someone had better start being interesting,” Meg says.

“You’ve lived here before,” Kevin says. “You and… Castiel.”

“How d’you figure that?”

“You left things behind.” It had taken a while to match the old scents, but Kevin’s pretty sure. “And Sam pretty much said he knew you guys. So either you lived here before, or you lived with Sam in another habitat.”

“I’ll take Door A.” Meg smiles beatifically, and Kevin wonders if some wolves are able to keep their full canines even when two-legged. “What, you want a demonstration? Sit, beg, roll over?”

Kevin starts at the low growl in her voice. “Never mind. Sorry to waste your time.”

He starts to leave, only to be stopped when Castiel yips softly. Meg sighs and says, “Yes, he doesn’t get the reference. Kid, stop.” She waits until he turns around. “That was a joke. A domesticated wolf joke, because that’s what I am. I smell strange to you because our hormones get messed up after a while in that life, and the scent changes with it.”

Kevin understands the word, but not the context. “Domesticated? By who, the gods?”

“Don’t call them gods,” Meg says sharply. “They’re leviathan. And yes, by them.”

“Does a name make a difference?”

“Accuracy makes a difference. To call them gods is to admit awe. How about let’s _not_ , hmm?” Meg nudges a foot against Castiel’s side as though prompting for a seconding of her opinion, but Castiel just huffs and stays shifted. “This one’s… well, we haven’t really decided on a word for what Castiel is. Dean likes to call him a freak of nature, but he’s biased. Don’t let Castiel’s size fool you.”

“Okay.” So there are more kinds of wolves in the world that just the breeds that can be differentiated based on the colors of their coats and shapes of their muzzles. Castiel has really long claws. “Okay. Thanks.”

Meg raises her eyebrows. “That’s it?”

“Why, what’d you think I wanted?”

“We’re social creatures,” Meg says. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Castiel can braid your hair.”

Is she talking about pack socializing? Kevin’s nose still itches when he gets too close to them, though that’s really nothing personal. He just needs time to get used to them, is all, like he needs time to get used to sleeping underground and being able to see the sky when he looks up.

Kevin’s thoughts must be visible on his face, because Meg shrugs loosely. “Well, we’ll be here.” She chuckles. “Where else will we go, right?”

* * *

Okay. Charlie said that she’s the newest wolf to arrive before Kevin. Meg and Castiel have lived here before. Sam and Dean have left their scent practically _everywhere_ (which is annoying and kinda overwhelming) so they’re the elders of the enclave. Jody, though. Jody seems older than Sam and Dean, but her scent is newer. Maybe that’s why there’s no alpha or alpha pair here – Jody is older but Sam and Dean have seniority of time spent in the enclave. Maybe?

There is wind in the enclave due to the vents built high up into the wall. That means that upwind and downwind are actually freaking _relevant_ here, which is all kinds of awesome and allows Kevin to stalk in the undergrowth. He’s four-legged and hunched under some bushes, tail pressed close against his body as he watches Jody sit on a rock and carve a piece of wood.

Is it weird that she reminds Kevin a little of Mom? Only sometimes, because Jody seems to defer to Sam and Dean as often as they defer to her, while Mom’s position was undisputed. Kevin hopes he’s not just projecting. Jody _is_ in the top tier of the enclave, though, and Kevin would do well to observe her to learn his cues.

Jody’s knife is short, maybe the length of her hand. Kevin didn’t have many chances to handle metalworks back in his old pack, but they seem to be more generous with the supplies here. Who knows what he’ll be able to do.

There’s a rustle to Kevin’s left. He turns, only to see a huge green-gold eye staring at him.

Kevin yelps and flails, hitting branches on his way up. Getting horribly tangled in the undergrowth is possibly the worst way to lose his cover, and all the more so when the green-gold eye apparently belongs to Sam, who unfolds himself upward, crosses his arms, and says, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Kevin shifts and kicks himself out of the branches. “Nothing! How did I not smell you?”

“You did, you just were just too busy paying attention to something else.”

Kevin glances sideways, to where Jody is shaking her head and grinning, but still whittling away. “I was just… investigating.”

“You weren’t going to pounce?” Sam asks.

“I’d like to see him try!” Jody calls out.

“I wasn’t!” Kevin brushes himself down with as much dignity as he can. “Even if I was, I wasn’t going to do it while she’s holding a knife, what the hell.”

Sam looks skeptical. Which, yeah, is a reasonable frame of mind, what with Kevin still being the new one here. Kevin tries a smile, because smiles aren’t threatening (unless they’re coming from Meg, apparently), and if he were shifted out his ears would be flattened down to his head.

“Can I ask what you’re investigating?” Sam says.

“Oh, you know…” Kevin waves flippantly at the general vicinity. “This and that.”

Sam purses his mouth a little when he thinks. He turns to Jody for a moment, flicking two fingers against his temple in a little gesture of acknowledgement, and then scoops up Kevin’s elbow in a bowl-sized hand to pointedly lead him away.

“Whoa there now,” Kevin protests, though he doesn’t put that much effort resisting Sam’s firm pulling him along. “I really wasn’t gonna jump her! Is she your mate, I thought nobody here was mated, have I been getting the mate scents wrong, too? Did you know your pack is so freaking strange? Wait, sorry, that’s offensive, my bad, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Your turn to _whoa now_ , Kevin,” Sam says as he stops and turns to give Kevin his full attention. No other wolves immediately nearby, and Sam could theoretically rip out Kevin’s throat and have him a mid-morning snack and no one would be the wiser. “Are you planning to escape?”

“What?” Kevin says.

“Don’t bother lying, I’ll be able to tell.”

Somehow Kevin believes him. “I’m not planning to escape. Where would I escape to?”

“Your old pack?”

“How would I find them again?” Kevin asks. “I mean, I’m sad, yes, and I miss them all the time, but that’s… That’s something that I can pack away. I know that this is my new home, and I have to adjust. I’ve been prepared for this.”

If anything, this just confuses Sam even more. “Prepared for what?”

“Your pack is…” Kevin clears his throat. “So you, Dean and Jody are older. Meg and Castiel are…okay, I don’t know what they are, to be honest, but me and Charlie are new, right? We’re the young stock, and we were put here to round things out. Wolves get shifted around to new packs, new habitats, to see what works. So I’m trying to see how I can be useful here, to this pack.”

Sam’s brow furrows. “You think I’m old?”

“Yes. No! No, you’re in the spring, prime of your life, look at those biceps.” Kevin smacks one of them, and does not whimper when it feels like he’s backhanded solid rock. One day Kevin’s biceps will totally be that awesome. “Totally not old.”

“Do you know what aging actually looks like?”

“Yes,” Kevin says, offended by Sam’s raised eyebrow. “My mom was alpha of my old pack. I wasn’t raised with _just_ pups.”

Sam’s expression softens. “I’m sorry that they took you from her.”

“Yeah, well.” Kevin shrugs. “Anyways, _this_ pack happens to skew young, and I had to adjust the hierarchy in my head. What, is this habitat only meant for young wolves or something?”

“Does it matter?” Sam turns away for a moment. His hair is really long, the edges curling past his chin. Maybe his neck gets cold. “I’m going to take you at your word that you’re not going to try to escape.”

“I’m not.”

“Good.” Sam turns back to Kevin, and his voice is low and serious when he says, “Because people have tried it before, and it didn’t work out. This is one of the best habitats I’ve ever lived in, and hand-in-hand with that is the fact that it’s one of the best guarded.”

“Logically.”

“The leviathan watch us all the time.”

“Duh.”

“No, I mean…” Sam pauses, as though trying to word himself carefully. “I don’t mean just through the glass. They have little eyes all over the enclave.”

“The cameras. Yes, I know, they’re really difficult to miss.”

Sam frowns. “You know about the cameras?”

“Well, yeah, they’re the only mechanical things in an organic environment. My nose isn’t _that_ broken.” They’re not all that different from the tiny cameras that had been all over the capsules. Channing hated them, but Kevin only noticed them when she pointed them out. “They’re embedded really well, though, like in the trees and rocks and stuff? How do they even keep them running?”

“Uh.” Sam blinks rapidly. “Every few months they cordon off parts of the enclave for upkeep.”

Kevin nods. “Makes sense. I mean, like you said, this place is really nifty, and nifty needs maintenance.”

Sam studies Kevin for a long moment. “You should get to know Charlie,” he says at last. “She likes… tinkering with things she finds inside the enclave.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Kevin asks. “Do they allow that?”

“As long as we’re amusing ourselves. They are looking out for our… well-being.” Sam has almost the same delivery as Meg when he talks about leviathan. There are some pretty bitter wolves around these parts. Not that Kevin would say that out loud.

“Cool.” Kevin belatedly wonders if that was a subtle attempt to get him to check Charlie out. She is the other youngest wolf here, which is kind of a cliché, but clichés do serve their function. “Can I go now?”

“Sure, of course.” Sam backs off, his smile abruptly friendly, his arms loose at his sides. Unaggressive. “You know you can just come see any of us if you have any questions. You don’t need to sneak around.”

Except that Kevin is the newest wolf in a pack that doesn’t have a clear social structure for him to find his own place. The habitat is super fancy but the wolves skew younger, and Kevin really doesn’t want that to mean that wolves are brought here to be softened up before being sent to… wherever else. If he asks that out loud there’s a chance Sam will confirm it, which is a risk Kevin isn’t willing to take yet.

It’s fine if things are run differently here, because it’s not like Kevin’s harboring some bone-deep belief that all wolves everywhere are the same. But it does leave him floundering a little more than he’d prefer, and the gentle reassurance and openness of Sam’s face isn’t enough to make up for it. Kevin _could_ ask him more, but Sam hesitates too much and watches his wording too often.

“How ‘bout I ask you something,” Sam says. “How’d you learn to climb so well? Are there trees where you’re from?”

“Oh! Um, no, not really, the capsules were metal structures, very different from this place. There was lots of white and grey, but like made of layers and tubes you could climb through? More vertical than this place anyway.”

“Were there curved edges and bars to climb?” Sam asks. When Kevin starts in surprise and nods, Sam adds, “I used to live in one of those, too. Not for very long, but it was… It exercised different muscles and was pretty cool, I had fun. Did the leviathan give you tests with the flash cards, too?”

“Yes!” Kevin exclaims. “The prizes were mostly simple things like flints and charcoal, but it felt good to get the right answers. Me and my… the others, we used to compete to see who’d get the most.”

“How about mazes, do they still do those?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely! Those are so much fun, especially when they let us free roam.” Kevin talks about the sheer ingenuity of the leviathan structures and mazes that they were given to explore, and although they’d known these were tests of their intelligence and strength, they’d still been _fun_.

Sam listens, his eyes alight with interest and his mouth quirking every so often. His head is slightly bowed due to Kevin’s height, but that seems to be more an unconscious thing than anything else, for he seems honestly enraptured by Kevin’s description of a previous habitat. In fact, Sam’s eagerness is almost unnerving, as though there’s a sad sort of envy inside all of his questions.

“But this place is great, too,” Kevin says. “It’s different, but… That just means it offers different things to learn.”

“Definitely,” Sam says. “Do you run? ‘Cause if you run, you should totally join me and Jody once of these days.”

“With you?” Kevin says, and slowly looks Sam up and down. “Dude, I think I know when not to kick my ego in the balls.”

“Right,” Sam says with a laugh, “because it’s easier to run when your center of gravity is higher off the ground. Indulge an ‘old’ wolf, why don’t you.”

“Hey don’t throw that back at me, I don’t even see any gray.” Kevin reaches up without thinking, his fingers moving to the hair near Sam’s temples and combing outwards. _Wow_ , yeah, Sam totally has something going on there, it must be really comfortable when he sleeps. “Yeah, you’re good. Serious, though, I’d prefer to be better prepared before I humiliate myself. I’ll let you know?”

Sam’s grin is bright. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

They may not go on a run today, but Kevin lets Sam take him over to the distribution platforms, explaining how they work. If Kevin wants to be helpful, he can take a turn managing the arrival of food and supplies, and Kevin is grateful for the chance for it.

* * *

Every so often, the wolves gather in the clearing to tell stories. Charlie says this is something the pack started doing more often once she moved to the enclave. Personally, Kevin prefers staying in his burrow at night, mostly because his night vision isn’t very good and the reflection off the glass gives him a mild headache, but the next time Charlie invites him to join, he goes.

“Welcome fellow travelers!” Charlie is standing up while everyone else sits around in a loose circle. She has a long cord around her neck from which a carved tooth dangles; apparently the rule is that only whoever’s wearing it gets to speak. “We have new meat with us tonight, but he shall be spared the task of having to offer a story of his own to be worthy of our circle. That comes later.” She grins at him.

“Hey,” Sam says, “why does Dean get to sit on that side? What are those?”

“Puppets,” Dean declares proudly. He’s fashioned little figures out of twigs and leaves, tied together with string. “Crucial storytelling props. This one is—”

“Is that the Top Secret project you’ve been working on the past few days?” Sam asks.

“Maybe,” Dean hedges.

“The Top Secret project that you threatened to bite my tail off when I _so_ innocently asked what you were doing—”

“Are you wearing the speaker necklace? I don’t see you wearing the speaker necklace, I see _Charlie_ wearing the speaker necklace.” Dean makes at a face at Sam, who gives him an unimpressed stare, and for a moment Kevin successfully forgets that these are two-hundredish-pound wolves who could crush Kevin’s skull between their elbows. Dean adds, “The speaker tells the story, and the floor shuts their cakehole.”

Jody, who is half-chewing on the leftover bones from dinner, chimes up just then: “This is the worst prologue I’ve ever heard.”

“And I agree with you there,” Charlie says amiably. “You, back up, and you, take your station. Now I ask you to open your ears and dig your dewclaws in. Now we start our tale on a fair day, many years ago in a land covered in glorious green…”

It takes a minute or so for Charlie to get her momentum, but once she does, it’s like… magic. Through Charlie’s fable she is transported and transports everyone with her, beyond the walls and streams, out of the enclave, into a world of elemental wolves and cougars and mountain lions, where adventures are made and endings are sought. Channing might say that this kind of practice is dangerous, but Kevin is enthralled.

Mom’s stories were simple and moralistic. Kate and Brian had more flair when they tried, but it admittedly wasn’t often. Kevin’s never enjoyed a _show_ before, Dean sitting close by Charlie’s feet and providing sound effects and visual action pieces with his puppets.

“But why would she go to the alpha?” Sam asks at one point. “Why doesn’t she become the alpha, wouldn’t that be easier?”

“No, that wouldn’t be easier,” Jody protests, “because then she’d have to deal with the other wolves, and her goals are more primal than that.”

“I don’t think they’re primal at all,” Sam says. “Her emotions are going against the instinct of the pack.”

This is new, too, the audience providing their commentary while Charlie hovers, undecided whether their discussion is the most flattering thing ever or is in danger of poking holes into her story. Kevin doesn’t mean to laugh at her expression, but he does, and the glare she shoots him has him ducking his head quickly.

Charlie’s really nice and excitable, and it’s totally not her fault that Kevin’s slightly on edge around her. To be honest, Kevin’s slightly on edge around _everyone_ for various reasons, but Charlie is... Well, to come right down the facts, she’s around his age, and she’s female. There’s an expectation there, and it doesn’t matter if Charlie doesn’t care because Kevin can be self-conscious enough for the both of them.

Kevin’s rut cycle has been regular over the past few seasons. He hasn’t felt a hint of his next one, but just knowing that it’s coming, that spring is just around the corner, weighs Kevin with an obligation to give Charlie a wide berth. It’s quite clear that she could turn him down flat if she wanted – she’s a little older than he is, more confident and assured of her place in the enclave – but still, Kevin doesn’t want to look at her and only see _that_ expectation. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

There are duties that are personal, but there are duties that are owed to the pack. Health and survival are key even in a well-sustained environment like this, and survival includes bringing about the next generation.

His old pack only had Mom to watch over them, and Kevin never asked why. He has vague memories of other elder wolves but they’re too hazy to be useful, and mentioning those memories used to make Mom sad or angry, so he didn’t. The leviathan never sent any more mature wolves into their habitat but he’s sure, based on Mom’s lessons and guarded stories, that if they judged her to have more value in pregnancy than in raising a series of orphaned pups – Channing, Kate, Brian and Michael – alongside her biological one, then they would have.

It kind of makes Kevin ill to think of it as a duty, but he’d still taken Sam’s suggestion to see Charlie few times, during which he’d marveled at her carvings and had some cool discussion the mechanics of the enclave’s streams. There’d been no talk of mating or pups, so Kevin knows that his nervousness is all in his head. What happens will happen when it happens, and all that.

“See, now you’ve done it,” Sam says. Kevin jumps when a hand lands on his shoulder – Sam has apparently scooted over to poke him. “You’ve completely lost your audience.”

“I’m not the one who started asking questions,” Kevin says.

“Thank you!” Dean says.

“I was saving them for after,” Kevin adds. It’s at this point that Kevin’s eye drifts over to the underbrush on the far side, his gaze caught by movement. His vision takes a second to adjust, and then he sees the eyes down there, half-lidded and blue. His scent is too subtle but that’s Castiel; no one else in the enclave has eyes that color. They’re not focused on Kevin.

Kevin must have stared too long because Dean turns to look, and then his lips peel back into a low growl.

“Let him listen,” Kevin blurts out. “Dean, it’s a good story. It’s pretty obvious Charlie worked hard on it. He just wants to listen.”

Dean’s scowl is fierce but Kevin holds his gaze, trying his best not to flinch. Charlie bites her lip and fiddles with her necklace, watching Dean closely. After a long moment Dean turns away, but he flicks his fingers against Charlie’s ankle, a subtle signal for her continue. Charlie visibly relaxes, smiles at Kevin, and starts again.

“Good going,” Sam says quietly.

Kevin can’t help shooting Sam a quick glare of annoyance. It hasn't escaped his notice that this isn’t the first time Sam hasn’t intervened.

Sam ducks his head, abashed. “I… sorry,” he whispers. He bumps his shoulder against Kevin’s, which thanks to the fact that they’re sitting down means that the height difference is less an issue and Kevin doesn’t get an elbow to his eye. “Long story.”

“Really?” Kevin whispers back. “I can sum it up – Dean doesn’t like domesticated wolves, or fake wolves.”

Sam stiffens a little, and from the corner of Kevin’s eye he thinks he sees Sam open his mouth to protest or explain, but then decides against it. It’s a good thing, too, because Charlie’s just getting to the good part.

* * *

All things considered, Kevin can’t really be that offended that no one told him there’s an eighth wolf in the enclave. After all, this is a pack that somehow _assumed_ that he knew that Sam and Dean are brothers, as though this is information that people absorb with the sunlight or something.

But Kevin does find out about the eighth wolf, the scents of his burrow toned down by its proximity to the stream, and soil packed up at the entrance that made Kevin assume it was empty like so many of the others. It’s during one of which Kevin’s walks that his ear catches movement inside the burrow, and his initial thought is that it’s live prey left inside the enclave for them to hunt.

Kevin sniffs the ground, and then paws at the earth tentatively. The opening is narrow, but he’s a relatively small wolf and is able to squeeze through it with some effort.

At far back of the narrow, dark burrow, is another wolf. He’s about Kevin’s size but older, his frame a little skinnier, his fur slightly matted. There is food nearby – the other wolves must have been dropping it off for him.

The wolf eyeballs him warily, though he doesn’t show his teeth in an aggression display. Kevin whines curiously, keeping a respectful distance.

The other wolf shifts. “This is a terrible location,” he says nervously. “You don’t want this burrow.”

Kevin joins him by going two-legged, and sits back on his haunches. “I have my own burrow. It’s just, no one told me there was another wolf here. Are you trapped? Sick?”

“Hiding.”

Kevin considers the wolf’s slightly panicky expression, and the way his eyes flicker in various directions, almost as though aware of the hidden cameras. “You’re scared of the leviathan. What’d they do to you?”

“Not what they did, what they _will_ do.” The wolf introduces himself as Chuck, and he admits that he didn’t order the other wolves to hide his presence, more like they decided to respect his desire to stay unseen. When Kevin asks if he’d rather he leave, Chuck seems to shake himself off and insist that it’s fine, he hasn’t had guests in forever but he remembers how it works, and invites Kevin to sit.

“You should let someone groom you,” Kevin says. “Your coat looks really uncomfortable.”

“I—I couldn’t.” Chuck scratches behind his ear absently. “I mean, I won’t be here long anyway, so I’m not really pack.”

“What do you mean you won’t be here long?”

“Too many males here already. And I… caused the last escape attempts. The leviathan may not understand our language but they understand tone. They study us all the time, watch our behavior, analyze everything we do.”

“I know _that_.” Kevin tells him about living in the capsule, and Chuck nods slowly, his eyes slowly lighting up as he grows more interested. “They want to understand us and ensure our… propagation.”

“And I messed that up,” Chuck says. “Maybe not directly, but indirectly. They’ll take me away any day now. Once you’re settled in, probably.”

Kevin almost apologizes, but Chuck’s bitterness is directed inward, not outward. He’s fearful for himself and has broken off from the rest of the pack in anticipation of the future. Kevin says, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay inside all the time. You need some fresh air, some sunlight.”

“Makes me easier to catch.”

“If they want to catch you, they’ll catch you,” Kevin points out. “Being in a burrow isn’t going to stop them. If you know the leviathan, you should know that.”

Chuck flushes guiltily. “Fine. I stay in here ‘cause it makes me feel better. You’re young, you don’t know. One death is a big deal, but many dying, it’s—it’s catastrophic.”

“Because we’re an endangered species,” Kevin says quietly. He shivers and rubs his arms nervously. “Yeah, I guess I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have so many deaths.” It still doesn’t make sense in Kevin’s head, what with the nourishment and comfort of the enclave, yet the remnants of wolves who’d lived and gone are numerous.

Chuck is sitting up now. “How do you know? That we’re endangered?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? The way we live? The exaggerated comfort, the way wolves get moved around to find pack combinations that work?”

Where Chuck had been twitchy before, he is now very still. He is alert and upright, the way a wolf is when their attention is caught. If his other ears were out, they’d be perked up. “Most wolves can’t take that knowledge,” Chuck says quietly. “It distresses them. Sometimes to the point of… self-destruction.”

Kevin nods. “It was like that at my old pack. I tried not to talk about it, but it just seems… logical to me, I guess?”

“Oh howling father,” Chuck curses softly, reaching out to grab Kevin’s hands clumsily. “You can listen, you _must_ listen. It’s Kevin, right? Kevin, I must tell you everything before they take me away.”

“Uh.” Kevin looks down at Chuck’s hands. “I really want to groom you, though.”

“You can groom me all you want,” Chuck says, waving it off. “As long as you will also listen.”

Kevin is unsure whether he’s supposed to take that as ominous or promising. He settles for somewhere in between, and discovers that Chuck is a very different storyteller from Charlie.

Kevin’s had questions his whole life. He’s also learned not to expect answers, though he takes them where he can and pieces others together as he goes along. Chuck is different from the other wolves here; he talks with a frantic energy that is invigorating and humbling. Chuck talks as though he has nothing to lose and everything to give. After a few visits, Kevin’s head feels full and Chuck’s coat looks much better.

* * *

It’s only natural that afterward Kevin wants to search out Castiel. He still sees Castiel and Meg around the enclave on regular basis – it’s a comfortably big habitat, but not _that_ big, and Kevin doesn’t care about minding the unspoken territories (as if they can afford to have territories here). Kevin knows that Castiel likes to sit by the fancy little waterfall and pool that is very near the glass wall. The spot is so picturesque that Kevin suspects there’s a viewing room just beyond the glass, and he imagines that leviathan like to sit there and contemplate the wolves’ existence. Or something.

Castiel is indeed at that spot when Kevin goes there today, sitting upright, his legs hanging over the edge of the pool. What Kevin doesn’t expect is for Sam, not Meg, to be with him. Sam is four-legged, and Castiel is talking to him as he cards through the fur of Sam’s back.

“Certain types of bracken are good for our health,” Castiel is saying. “They will help with our digestion, but they don’t last very long so they have to be eaten fresh. They taste like rain.”

Sam’s ear pricks when Kevin approaches. Castiel glances up at Kevin briefly, his smile benign, then he returns to his work. Kevin sits down to watch.

Chuck called Castiel a lightning wolf. No matter how normalized his scent of burning metal has become, its foreignness is a constant, and Kevin likes giving that foreignness a name. Kevin tries to imagine what it must have been like when the lightning wolves started showing up in the habitats, with their arsenal of unnatural strength and disproportionate four-legged forms. Chuck said that lightning wolves can fell a tree with their bare paws and snap another wolf’s leg in one bite. Kevin has, fortunately or unfortunately, only ever seen Castiel carry branches that Meg throws for him to catch. Kevin’s imagination is pretty awesome but here, he thinks, it must fall short.

In many ways it makes Kevin feel better to know that Castiel and his kin are literally _not_ natural. It explains the dissonance between Kevin’s eyes and other senses.

“This cutie here,” Castiel says, tilting his head towards Kevin, “he’s the result of a premium breeding program. He’s excellent stock, you can tell by his teeth and eyes. Very valuable. Oh, but don’t worry, Sam! You’re excellent stock, too. Hardy. Resilient.”

“What kind of stock are you?” Kevin asks. “Were you… were you made to breed with us for our survival?”

“What does survival mean?”  Castiel says distantly. “The passing of genetic material is an important element, but _surviving_ is also necessary for survival. Making it day to day without killing each other, that sounds like an accomplishment. Especially after the crossbreeding program with domesticated wolves failed.” Castiel’s laugh is thin, almost dreamy. “Did you know that when the interbreeding program was started, natural wolves could not recognize domesticated wolves as their kin? Called them dogs, a whole other species. Very fascinating. It’s a pity you missed it.”

Kevin smells Meg approach from behind. She says, very quietly, “He wasn’t always like this.” Sam’s tail flicks. Castiel keeps combing through Sam’s fur, now talking about the types of plants that tend to grow around a water hole.

“Should you be talking about him like he’s not here?” Kevin asks.

Meg settles on the ground, legs tucked under her. “I’m just saying, if Castiel is the first lab-grown wolf you’ve seen, then you’re getting a very skewed impression. They were created to herd the rest of us. When the fighting started between natural wolves and… _my_ kind, the leviathan added these engineered super alphas to bring things under control.”

“Which didn’t work out,” Kevin says.

Meg cocks her head a little in acknowledgement, her smile small and inscrutable. Kevin wonders how many incompatible packs she and Castiel must have been sent to, before the leviathan decided that it was worth the risk sending them back to this one. Kevin wonders whether Channing, Brian and the others have been moved to new packs of their own, and if so, how they’re coping.

“They have been moving towards naturally-occurring plants, too,” Castiel says. “The last time I was here there was a mix of engineered plants and natural ones, but it’s so nice to see them going organic. It’s very nice, and the smell is much better, don’t you think?”

So while Kevin and packmates were being raised under controlled conditions, other older packs were collapsing under their own weight. Not just in this enclave, too – Chuck’s been to various habitats and he’d said that fighting has been pandemic, the leviathan’s wolf recovery and integration program backfiring in a spectacular way.

Kevin, Kate, Channing, Charlie… they are part of the next wave of recovery programs. Kevin feels… Actually, he doesn’t know how it feels, because it’s too big to process all at once.

Sam’s eyes are open, and they swivel towards Kevin as though he is trying to gauge his thoughts. Kevin suddenly remembers the scars he’d seen on Sam’s other body – although he’d been curious about them, he couldn’t think of any polite way to ask. Sam and his brother are hardy, Castiel said. They survived the fighting. Dean holds a grudge, which Kevin understands. The ghosts in the enclave have names – Bobby, Jo, Ellen, Rufus, Ruby, Ash and so on – and though they mean little to Kevin, he feels humbler in being reminded that they lived and loved here.

There’s a bark in the distance. It’s Dean, and Sam immediately stands up, bumping his head against Castiel’s hand before sprinting off towards his brother. Castiel watches him go, but then looks back down at the empty space where Sam had been, frowning in confusion.

“One day we’ll work on that object permanence, Cas,” Meg says.

“Sam is more permanent than all of us put together,” Castiel says. “That was nice. I’m glad.”

“Why’d they send you back here?” Kevin asks. “If it went so badly the last time with the intermixing?”

Meg shrugs. “Who knows? The other packs aren’t doing that much better than this one. And Cas here tends to scare people.”

“I like rosemary,” Castiel says. “I will collect some for my burrow.”

“ _Cas_ scares people,” Kevin says flatly.

Meg laughs and falls over gently onto her back, popping a long piece of grass into her mouth to chew. “It was either that or put us to sleep. We’re still more valuable alive.”

Kevin shifts and crawls forward on four legs until he nudges up Castiel’s hand. Castiel smiles down at him, and scratches behind his ears before starting work on his coat. Meg hums an acknowledgment when Castiel starts talking about different types of thunderstorms.

* * *

Kevin finds Sam doing push-ups near his burrow, Charlie four-legged and curled up on his back as he moves. Charlie raises her head when she sees him, and she _yips_ faintly before Sam hushes at her to stop moving.

Kevin sought him out to ask a question, but ends up saying, “No.”

Sam pauses in the up portion of the push-up, and turns faintly to eyeball Kevin. “What?”

“This offends me,” Kevin says. “I am offended. Why is this necessary.”

“It feels good,” Sam says, muscles flexing as he starts again, moving up and down while Charlie apparently enjoys the ride, tongue drooping from the side of her smiling jowls. Kevin has to work hard to suppress an envious growl at the display of strength. “You know, blood circulation and—” he takes a breath, “—all that.”

“That’s why you _run_. What’s with the upper body strength?”

“Dude, are you angry?”

“Yes!” Kevin sits down, compelled to watch Sam closely for the no-doubt hidden flaws of his technique.

“Were you the toughest wolf in your old pack in addition to being the smartest one?”

“That’s nothing to do with…” Kevin trails off. “Are you suggesting I’m competitive?”

“Hey man, you said it.” Sam stops at the next push up. He jerks his shoulder a little, which is apparently Charlie’s cue to dismount. He rises up into a crouching position and makes a gesture at Kevin. “You give it a shot. Let me see.”

“Not in front of _you_.”

Sam laughs. “I’m not making fun of you, Kevin.” Charlie barks her agreement, and does a little circle of encouragement.

“No, no,” Kevin says, shaking his head. “I came to ask you something. About – about Meg and Castiel.” Sam’s face falls a little. It’s very subtle, and Kevin wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it. “I think the pack deserves to know if there’s going to be a problem. Considering what happened here in the past.”

“The past doesn’t matter,” Sam says. “Meg keeps to herself, and Cas is… well, you know.”

“You do know that’s not really an answer. I get what happened was terrible, but if there’s going to be another round of fighting because they were brought back—”

“It’s not going to happen,” Sam says flatly. “Trust me, it’s over.”

“Trust you,” Kevin echoes. “Right. Does Charlie know about the fighting? Did you tell her?” Charlie has frozen in place, fur along her spine rising up in anxiety. Kevin feels bad for her, really he does, but he’s on a roll.

“No, because it _doesn’t matter_ ,” Sam says, eyes flashing with anger. “None of that bullshit about pedigree or breeding or species matters anymore. That’s what we learned at the end of the fighting, when the bodies were collected and the blood washed out of the grass. Our literal job is to _not die_ , and all of us who survived the riots remember that.”

Kevin holds Sam’s glare. “Does Dean know this?”

Sam blinks a little, startled. “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

Kevin’s going to die in this enclave. The knowledge hits like a fist to the sternum, then reaches in to his ribcage to squeeze. He’s not even angry at Sam or Dean, or the leviathan, or Chuck for feeding his curiosity more than it perhaps was able to chew. He’s angry at himself for letting himself become self-aware and feeling this way, when he should be – what, grateful? Relieved? Content that their only purpose in the world is to _not die_?

If he were still with Mom, he wouldn’t know any of this. He would continue to be curious but not curious enough, and he’d play and learn and take the leviathan’s tests and feel good whenever he got something right.

A part of his mind is telling him to stop, focus and break this down into manageable chunks. The rest of his mind is in the middle of a full-blown panic sprint. His body doesn’t know what to do.

“Kevin?” Sam says carefully. “Hey, Kevin, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kevin hears himself say distantly. “Sorry to take up your time. I’m going now.”

“Kevin…” Sam starts, but Kevin’s already shifted and bounding off through the bushes.

* * *

It’s the night of the full moon, and he’s too gloomy to do more than sit at the mouth of his burrow with his head on his paws to wait for it to pass. He’d mostly missed his first moon in the enclave, having been too exhausted for exploration and slept it through, but he’s wide awake for this second moon.

The pull of the moon is mental as well as physical, and this one floods his chest with a furious longing for Mom, Channing and the others.

Everything is amplified during the moon. Kevin _feels_ his unhappiness like a physical ache, so much so that it takes him a while to realize that he’s not alone. Another wolf has found him, and Kevin can’t be fucked to be embarrassed that he might have been broadcasting his sadness to the world. The other wolf – Jody, he recognizes, once he takes a proper whiff – pads in close, her paws as soft as leaves, and slowly sets herself on the ground, a foreleg distance away, and lays her head on the ground in a position that mirrors Kevin’s.

For a moment Kevin is angry, because he didn’t ask her to join him and sometimes misery just wants to be miserable. She should be running with the others – Kevin can hear them bounding around the enclave, invigorated in their celebration of the moon. But being angry takes up too much energy, leaving Kevin drained all over again.

Does any of it matter? Wolves are dying, maybe because the habitats are failing, or their biology is failing, or all their evolutionary flaws have just ganged up and decided that their time is done. Why didn’t they just leave him back at his old pack, where he’d at least be with his loved ones as he waits to die.

They lie there for a long time, unmoving aside from the occasional twitch of their tails. The emotional riffs of Jody’s scent slowly makes its way through Kevin’s congested nose. She is sad as well. Her eyes are closed, and melancholy rises off her as she breathes.

The moon pulls. Kevin huffs under his breath, and the soft noise makes Jody stir and open her eyes. He cocks his head a little, asking for permission, and she flicks her ears in a yes. Jody shifts, unwinding her legs to make space, and Kevin tucks in against her side.

Kevin falls asleep like that, and when he wakes up the moon has passed its zenith. He yawns and, upon realizing that Jody’s awake, inches out of the lee of her body. Jody stretches, fur flapping when she shakes. She blinks groggily at him, and then cocks her head, asking her to join him.

They head down to the closest stream. The enclave is beautiful at night, and still new enough to Kevin that he can sit at the water’s edge to just enjoy the view. Jody laps at the water for a while, and then sits back and shifts.

“You okay there, Kevin?” Jody asks. “There’s still time if you want to run.”

Kevin shakes his head. Jody stretches her legs out in front of her, while on the far side of the enclave Charlie and Sam are trying to get Dean down from a tree. Kevin can’t see Meg and Castiel, but when he takes a deep whiff, the night breeze carries their scent from their side of the enclave. They don’t feel the pull of the moon like the rest of them do. Kevin wonders what that’s like.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jody says quietly, and Kevin feels himself bristle at her gentleness. He hates himself for that, too, because Jody knows loss as well, the scent is all over her, but still Kevin resents her for it. “Would you like to know what I do?”

Not really. Kevin cocks his head anyway, inviting her to continue.

“I create mementos,” Jody says. “I make things in the shape of memories that are precious to me.”

That sounds stupid and dangerous. Or awesome. Maybe it’s all three.

“Doesn’t that trap you in the past?” Kevin asks.

“There can be too much of anything, yes.” Jody tilts her head up to the moon, her eyes bright. “But for me, personally, it helps to have a physical object to look at, so I don’t need to be afraid I’ll lose the pieces in my head. Then there’s space for me to think about other things.”

That makes sense. Jody has some mad skills with her flint, though Kevin doesn’t recall any clear shapes in the carvings that she’s worked on. And it’s true that that’s not _all_ she does – Jody has her own housekeeping tasks around the enclave like everyone else.

Kevin still has some cardboard and charcoal from the last supply drop. He’s been using it mostly to keep track of the enclave’s activity schedule, but he could put it to additional use. The only thing that gives him pause is that the leviathan will see all of it, which is a strange thought to settle in his head after having had his entire life to get used to their constant watching him.

“And leviathan have never taken your things away?” Kevin asks.

“They encourage creativity, as long as it’s not harmful to anyone.” Jody leans close, her voice a whisper when she adds, “I design them so that no one can know their meaning except for me. Cracks me up thinking about the leviathan trying to make sense of ‘em.”

Kevin snorts under his breath. “That works.”

Jody pats the top of his head gently. “Yes, it does.”

* * *

The leviathan come for Chuck soon enough. From their conversations Kevin had been under the impression that it’s been a long time coming, yet as soon as it happens, there is one massive freak out.

Kevin is in his burrow when he hears the shouting start. He crawls out to the sight of the glass door closest to Chuck’s burrow opening, letting in a handful of leviathan. Now, Kevin saw his fair share of leviathan back in his old habitat, though they’d mostly stayed behind safety glass as they did their tests and observations. That said, they will never _ever_ not freak him out.

Their shapes are dark and changing, like smoke and oil. Sometimes they’re two-legged like wolves, but they’ve apparently compensated for their lack of visible eyes by having a million teeth.  Their scent is like a black hole of information – beyond knowing that they’re there and how many they are, there is no information that can be gained through their smell, the most basic of identifiers. It’s like they partially exist somewhere beyond the understanding of the five normal senses, which is both terrifying and really freaking annoying when you’re trying to track them down.

Kevin runs cautiously towards the activity, keeping his body low and his ears open. The leviathan’s voices are garbled and low, almost as intangible as their scents, and their tone is calm, as though trying not to scare the wolves that they’re tentatively approaching. Sam and Dean are four-legged; Dean has his mouth around Chuck’s arm, holding on to him, while Sam has his teeth on display. Watching all of this is Jody, who is crouching two-legged on a rock in readiness.

“It’s okay,” Chuck’s saying, struggling to break free from Dean’s hold. “It’s okay, I’m ready to go.”

Dean’s growl is sharp, a clear _no._

Jody speaks, her voice firm and steady: “They could have put us to sleep to take him, but they didn’t. They’re allowing us to say goodbye.”

“Please don’t do this,” Chuck says.

Kevin catches Jody’s eye. He follows her lead, bunching his legs when he sees her tense up in readiness. The leviathan are closer now and they could take Chuck away easily enough, but they’ve paused, as though waiting to see what the pack will do next.

Kevin moves when Sam does. Sam lunges towards the nearest leviathan, which is an emotional, unnecessary move because while Sam may be strong, he is not that strong. Kevin tackles Sam before he makes contact, biting at nearest body parts while Sam yowls and snaps his teeth. Elsewhere there’s a yelp and a growl – Kevin just catches sight of Chuck running towards the leviathan and Jody leaping off her rock towards Dean – and then Kevin’s rolling across the grass, hissing when Sam’s claws dig into his forelegs.

Sam shifts in Kevin’s hold, his hands coming out and grabbing fistfuls of Kevin’s fur to shove him away. Kevin is winded when he hits the ground, but he rolls over to watch, and is surprised when Sam rushes for Dean, who barks and goes two-legged just before Sam barrels into him.

Just before he disappears through the leviathan's door, Chuck glances back. He is calm and ready, not at all like how Kevin had been when they’d come for him. Kevin hopes he has a good pack waiting for him.

“Everyone’s gone!” Sam shouts, shoving at Dean. “They’re all gone!”

“It’s not my fault!” Dean yells back. “I could’ve stopped him but these—”

“This pack is not just the two of you anymore!” Jody shouts. “You have to stop it!”

“They’ll put him to sleep—” Sam exclaims.

“You don’t know that!” Jody says.

“They won’t.” Meg doesn’t shout, but her voice rips through the rumble like a gong. Kevin didn’t even hear her show up but there she is, unimpressed as ever. “If they didn’t put me or Cas down, they won’t do it to Chuck either.”

Sam shakes his head, furious. “You don’t get to—” He pauses when Kevin stands up, growling a warning.

“You want to settle this now, longshanks?” Meg strolls forward, hands splayed out on either side of her. “Or both of you at once? A threesome might be interesting. It’ll be better than the self-righteous bullshit you’ve been playing since we got back. This pack is less than a quarter the size it used to be, how do you even get off on that?”

“You have as much blood on your hands, Meg—” Dean says.

“As do _you_ ,” Meg counters. “Make a decision. Either you accept that’s in the past and move on, or we settle this now properly.”

Kevin expects the brothers to stand down. He really does. When that doesn’t happen, Kevin yells a war cry and enters the fray.

* * *

Castiel comes trotting along once it’s all over.

He sits on his haunches and observes the carnage: Dean is washing his arms in the stream, Meg is still shifted out and licking her hindleg, while Jody and Sam are lying on their backs, limbs spread out. Castiel scratches behind his ear and then slowly sprawls out on the grass, legs up in the air, which is probably the extent of his thoughts on the matter. Jody, who is nearest to him, squints for a moment and then reaches over to scratch his stomach.

It’s so _stupid_ , Kevin thinks. They’re wolves, they’re supposed to be better than this. He’s lying on his side, staring at his hands. He thinks he’s sprained something.

Maybe, despite all their intelligence and all their evolutionary history, their physicality continues to rule them. Heats, ruts, the moon pull, territorial urges – these are only the obvious manifestations of the command of their biology. There are other, less obvious manifestations, and perhaps this is one of them.

All wolves wrestle from when they’re puppies, but Kevin’s always thought of that as just another of many social bonding activities. Kevin doesn’t want to think of them as inherently violent creatures, but perhaps… they’re inherently violent. Dean has scratches over his arms, and he looks the most relaxed that Kevin’s ever seen him. Maybe _relaxed_ isn’t the right word. Relieved. Satisfied.

“Okay,” Charlie announces as she bounds into view, “so I have cool packs, but there are only three, so you’re going to have to decide among yourselves who gets them.”

Jody makes grabby hands at her. “Gimme.”

The worst of their wounds are merely minor scratches, bites and bruises. It’s nowhere near enough for the leviathan to intervene – which they didn’t – and anyway, alpha status fights can be far more vicious. It’d been more bluster and noise than bite, with Sam, Dean and Meg at the center of it while Jody and Kevin tried to get them to stop. A different kind of wrestling for a different kind of goal.

Kevin shudders when he wonders what the leviathan must think about their behavior. What conclusions would they get from that, and what does it say about them that they’ve decided not to interfere? He supposes there’s something to be said about how it’d been more about the screaming than the fighting – though Kevin doesn’t have all the context to understand all the barbs they’d flung at each other – and the only reason everyone’s collapsed is because Jody cleverly decoyed it into a race and they’d run themselves into exhaustion.

Meg sits up and shifts. She works her jaw, and the motion has her catching Sam’s eye. They look at each other for a moment – well, that’s not outright aggression there, at least? It’s more like some kind of… recognition. Castiel wiggles across the grass, inching closer towards Dean. Dean makes a face at him, but dismissively flicks Castiel’s tail, which is… at least not shouting?

These wolves are so weird. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Charlie makes way more sense than all of them put together.


	2. Chapter 2

Whatever has been going on in the enclave, the tone shifts a little after that. It’s not all immediately groovy, and they’re not happily sniffing each other’s butts – to use the disparaging phrase that Dean favors – but Kevin sees Meg and Castiel beyond their burrows more often, and Charlie gets bolder in her explorations of the habitat.

As for Kevin, he keeps doing his own thing, of which carving is totally _not_ , no matter how much advice Jody gives him. He’s taken to doing sketches on cardboard instead, though he takes care to only draw abstract shapes and symbols that will have meaning to him and no one else.

Today’s he’s sitting just outside his burrow and working a piece he’s tentatively decided to call ‘Mom is Circular Patterns’… because. Kevin smells Sam approach before he sees him, and only glances up at Sam’s, “Hey.”

“What?” Kevin asks.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says. “For… I took out my anger on you.”

“You took out your anger on the _pack_ ,” Kevin points out. “I know it wasn’t personal.”

“Still means I have to apologize to the pack,” Sam says, which is, okay yeah, that makes sense. Sam is currently six feet plus of thick limbs and swishy hair, but Kevin has seen him as six feet plus of righteous fury which, all things considered, had been scarier in his head than in real life. Yes, yes, it hadn’t been a _real_ fight, but Kevin is allowed to be mean in his own head.

“Apology accepted,” Kevin says. “Thanks.”

Sam is still standing there. “What’s that you’re doing?”

“Channeling my creative energy,” Kevin replies. “It’s just—”

Both of them fall silent at the wail of the warning siren. A beat later one of the doors opens, letting in a pair of leviathan carrying equipment and the portable fence. They walk with purpose, quickly and efficiently cordoning off a section of the enclave, hiding it from view.

“Ah shit,” Sam mutters. He starts to move, but stops when Kevin grabs his ankle.

“Chill,” Kevin says. “That’s just the vet.”

Sam frowns down at him. “How do you know?”

“It’s on their clothes. Vet staff.”

“What vet staff, what…” Sam’s eyes widen. “You can read their letters.”

“Nah,” Kevin says, waving it off. “It’s like anything else, if you see something often enough you remember what it means. I saw more leviathan at my old habitat than here, their uniforms are pretty distinct, there’s always little writing on everything.”

“No, but you can...” Sam jerks when he hears Dean’s shout of protest. Kevin sighs and releases his hold – there’s no point holding Sam back when it’s his brother in peril. Sam shifts mid-air, dropping into a full run while Kevin returns to his work.

Kevin should _probably_ not laugh when Dean yowls from behind the temporary fence.

“Dean!” Sam yells. “What’re they doing? I can’t see! Dean!”

Kevin puts the used cardboard piece down and starts working with a new one. The previous drawing wasn’t really working, but with enough practice he should be able to get better coordination with his hands. In his day the leviathan gave them blocks to build stuff. Maybe he should find things to _make_ blocks. Yeah, that’s an idea.

Another yowl, and then there’s the click and hiss of the leviathan packing their things up. Another warning siren, and then the door’s opening and they’re leaving. Just another routine check-up.

Kevin stops drawing just long enough to hear Dean grumble, “They patched a tooth. Shut up.”

“What was wrong with your tooth?”  Sam demands.

“Don’t judge me!” There’s the sounds of a light scuffle, and then a flash of brown as Dean races past in his four-legged form.

It’s not that long before Sam’s footsteps return, and Kevin says, “Told you.”

“Okay, but I think you’re missing the point.” Sam sits down, close enough that Kevin instinctively leans away. “Kevin. You can read their letters.” He’s speaking softly, but he’s _excited_.

“It’s not a big deal,” Kevin says.

“Aha!” Sam laughs, low and hearty. “You – did they ever test you?”

“On recognizing words? No. Just shapes and colors.”

“Okay, okay, they don’t know. Good, they shouldn’t know.” Sam inches in closer, forcing Kevin to carefully elbow him an inch or so back. “I hate to break it you, Kevin, but I can’t read their letters. No one I know can. They’re constantly moving, just like the leviathan do, and it’s hard to focus on them without getting a headache.”

“I know _that_ ,” Kevin says. He’d told Mom about the leviathan’s words, and she’d said almost the same thing Sam just did, that it’s best not to let the leviathan know. It hadn’t really mattered anyway, beyond figuring out which leviathan had which duties, and to be worried when they came for you holding little boxes that said _vaccination shots._

“Then you know what a big deal this is?” Sam says. “You need to teach me.”

“What? No.”

“This is tremendous,” Sam insists. “If we can read, we can understand them and what they’re doing. Some of it, anyway. Kevin, this is a very useful skill, and more than one wolf should have it.”

It’s useless to try to draw with Sam almost breathing down his neck, so Kevin puts his work down. “It’s really not that much of an advantage to know _some_ of their words.”

“Oh yeah? You just told me not to be worried, because you knew those leviathan were vets.”

“But that’s…” Kevin is annoyed, and isn’t entirely sure why he’s annoyed. There’s a warm bloom of pleasure at Sam’s attention, but it feels like misplaced attention. Or attention for the wrong things. This isn’t even in the top ten of things that Kevin feels proud about himself. Sam should stop staring at him with such wide eyes, he’s a grown wolf for crying out loud.  “Can’t be done. The leviathan will figure out what’s happening.”

“They won’t,” Sam says. “Not if we just talk about it. No drawing things down, no sketching, no obvious pointing. Just talk. Look, I know, it might not even work at all, I might not even be able to handle it. But it’s worth a shot.”

Kevin finally turns to Sam, according him his full attention. “Sell me on it.”

Sam frowns a little. “Are you bargaining? Is there something you want in return?”

“I… don’t know?”

“I’ll clean your burrow. Or I could make you a new belt! The tougher hide takes longer to work on, but I’m pretty good at it.” Sam plucks at the belt he’s wearing, with its pockets and loops to hang things on, and the long strip that goes up and over his shoulder. Kevin thinks it would be cool to have one of his own. “Is that a yes?”

“Fine,” Kevin says. “Sure.”

Sam clasps Kevin’s shoulder, his grip sure and his smile bright. If Kevin’s neck grows warm at the gratitude, that’s only normal.

* * *

As far as Kevin can tell, there are no external consequences from the pack’s rumpus. As the days march on, the food and supplies come as normal, their burrows and belongings are left untouched, and the cleaning cycles go on with regularity. The leviathan have let them be, and the only new thing to happen comes a few weeks later: they’ve installed testing boxes, with all that entails.

Much like the testing boxes Kevin’s used to, these are large see-through glass boxes, most of them big enough for a wolf to enter, and inside them is a puzzle to solve. If someone gets them right a prize will come through. Most of the prizes are food, and others some really nifty rare goodies.

Dean steers clear of the testing boxes, but he seems to be amused at Charlie’s excitement over them. Jody pokes at one or two, only to be frustrated when the tests aren’t what she’s interested in. (“Give me something with hand-eye coordination, is that too much to ask?”) Meg cares for boxes less than Dean does, if that's at all possible, but Castiel kicks everyone’s asses by solving every single puzzle he steps into, only to forget to collect his prize afterward.

As for Sam, his only interest in the testing boxes is if they have leviathan writing somewhere inside them, which he then asks Kevin about.

The comprehension lessons are going about as well as Kevin thought they would. Wolf eyes are awesome for plenty of things, but reading leviathan letters is pretty low down their list of functions. Staring at leviathan letters is like staring at fire, and for all of Sam’s initial enthusiasm when the lessons started, even his patience gets worn out after a while.

“Maybe I should stick to solving their puzzles,” Sam says. They’re sitting on the roots of one of the enclave’s largest trees, which has a decent view of Charlie trying to drag Jody into a testing box that apparently requires two participants. Spread out at their feet is a box from the latest supply drop. What the leviathan will see is them planning what to do with the box. What they’re actually doing is trying to read the letters on the side of the box.

“I saw a really interesting one on the other side,” Kevin says. “It was a color thing. I think you’re supposed to fit the pieces into it in a certain order.”

“Why didn’t you give it a shot?”

“What for?”

“To assist with the program,” Sam says with a flourish. “To provide the leviathan with more information so they can make our habitat more suitable for our delicate needs.”

“Hey man, if you want to stop listening to me yammer about leviathan letters, just say so.”

Sam gives him a look, and then pointedly leans back on his elbows, a stubborn weight wedged in the roots of the trees. “I’ve almost got it. It’s _This Way Up_ and _Handle with Care_ , right? I’ll get the letter association down, just gimme a sec.”

Mom would probably approve of Sam’s dedication to working on this. Or maybe she wouldn’t, since she told Kevin never to let on that he could see the letters at all. Lately Kevin’s been getting more and more unsure how Mom would react to anything in this enclave, when so much of it is new. One thing’s for sure now, though – Kevin has a hell of a lot more respect for how Mom held it together without another adult wolf to share the burden. Kevin cannot imagine how she’d react to this pack with its weird rules and non-hierarchy and disinterest in the fact that it has no alpha.

“Up,” Sam says. “Tree.”

“Good,” Kevin says. Sam rattles off two more correct ones, and beams when Kevin confirms that those are also correct. “You know this is only a test in your head. You don’t have anything to prove.”

“Knowledge is important,” Sam says. “That’s how you make informed decisions.”

Kevin opens his mouth, and then closes it again when he realizes he can’t disagree. It’s unnerving. Also unnerving is the way Sam’s mouth droops when he gets the next word wrong.

“Let’s do a puzzle,” Kevin says suddenly. “Right now. You’re stressing me out, so let’s do something else before you brain explodes.”

“My brain isn’t going to explode,” Sam mumbles, almost petulantly.

It hits Kevin that he actually _knows_ that tone. He’d heard it often enough in his old pack that his body seems to work on automatic, making him stand up and put his hands on his hips. Sam sighs and makes disagreeable noises, but he follows when Kevin starts walking.

Sam’s pushing himself quite hard on this one. Kevin understands _that_ more than he understands a lot of other things, but it’s unsettling to see it manifested in Sam. He’s already in the top tier of the pack, he’s experienced things that Kevin can barely begin to understand, and he can lift another wolf on his back without losing his breath. Kevin could submit to an alpha like that easily enough, but teaching them letters is something else.

They find the puzzle that Kevin pointed out earlier. The glass box isn’t large enough for both of them to enter but they’re able to take the bowl of puzzle pieces out, spreading them on the ground for both of them to study.

“See, you’re supposed to fit the colored pieces in a grid,” Kevin says. “But the pieces don’t…”

“They’re not the same shape yeah, I see.” Sam moves a few pieces around and then says, almost absent-mindedly, “I haven’t seen you solve any of the puzzles.”

“Not interested, I guess.”

“Not interested?” Sam echoes.

“I don’t know.” Kevin shrugs. “Cas and Charlie get a kick out of them, so they should have that.”

Sam nods, but it doesn’t look like he entirely believes that. “Help me find a long piece, it should fit in there.”

“No, that’s supposed to…” Kevin stops when he realizes Sam is goading him. “Ha ha.”

“Hey, it was your idea to check this out.”

“I get tense, okay,” Kevin says. “These things – we used to make competitions out of them, we’d challenge each other, see who could do it faster, who could solve it right the first time. But it’s – that’s stupid, isn’t it.”

“It’s not stupid. Sometimes you need to exercise yours legs, and other times you need to exercise your mind. It feels good when you figure something out, nothing wrong with that.”

“You would know, since you do it, too,” Kevin counters. “Aha! Gotcha!”

“I wear my shame,” Sam says solemnly, pressing a hand to his chest. “It’s okay to admit if the puzzle is too difficult for you. There’s nothing wrong if you can’t solve it.”

“What? Go away.”

“Kevin, no one cares if you—”

Kevin grabs for the pieces at the same time Sam does. They freeze like that, Kevin scowling at Sam’s sharp smile. Kevin’s not stupid, he knows what Sam’s doing, but the challenge is… well, it’s a _challenge_. A beat and then they’re moving frantically, grabbing wildly at pieces and rushing to put them into the frame. Sam’s hands are huge but Kevin’s fingers are more deft. Sam can shoulder him aside but Kevin can climb on top of him and push him down into the grass while Sam laughs.

“It’s a repeating pattern!” Kevin yells. Sam’s got an arm around his torso, trying to haul him away from the pieces. “Wait, wait, they’re mirror images!”

“Knowledge is only half the key!” Sam bellows, just before he grunts when Kevin gets an elbow in his stomach. “Ow!”

Kevin gets the last piece in, but the orientation is wrong and Sam has to set it right. Kevin will still take the win, though, and both of them return the finished puzzle into the box and then sit back, shaking and slightly breathless as they wait for the prize. A small chute appears at the bottom of the box, and then a small black cloth bag falls through.

“You wanna?” Sam asks.

“Nah,” Kevin says. “It’s not about the prize.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t take it.” Sam picks up the bag, pupils dilating a little when he sniffs. “Whoa.”

Kevin drops back onto his butt, legs splayed out in front of him as he stretches. “Why d’you think they’ve brought the puzzles out now? There weren’t any for ages, not since I first got here. I almost thought you didn’t have that here at all.”

“Maybe they thought they’d get more interest now.” Sam’s opened up the prize bag, dipping his fingers inside curiously. “The program isn’t static. The habitat changes, the water changes, the plants change. I like to imagine the leviathan change as well.”

“What, a management changeover?”

“Yes, exactly. Why not, right? They’re not immortal, which means they have to disagree and change, even if slowly.”

It’s a fascinating idea. The puzzle may be solved but they stay there for a while longer, talking about the boxes and types of tests, Kevin describes how he and his old pack used to play and compete and occasionally mess up the tests entirely just to see what would happen. Sam laughs and describes a maze he and some other young wolves his age were subjected to – a long-term study that took weeks to complete, which sounds horrifying – but Sam insists that he learned a hell of lot about himself, and that making it back to Dean was one of the most rewarding things he’d ever won.

“Seriously, though,” Sam says. “When I was… I used to take the tests so seriously. I thought that if I solved enough, if the leviathan decided I was smart enough, it’d make sense. Everything would make sense.”

Kevin shivers at the familiarity of the statement. “It does make sense, though. It’s just not the sense you wanted. We wanted.”

“Yeah.” Sam’s gaze is off to the middle distance, and for a moment Kevin has a vision of Sam ten years ago, five years ago, hair messier than it is today, limbs looser, smile easier. Kevin doesn’t know that wolf, has only a vague inkling of what he must have been like, but Kevin’s struck with a sudden, heart-clenching regret that he will never know that wolf.

“Tell me more about that maze,” Kevin says. “I’ve never heard of so many wolves participating at once, that must’ve been nuts.”

Sam tries to be wave it off, but there’s no missing the high flush on Sam’s cheeks at the suggestion. It _is_ interesting, and Kevin _is_ interested, and Sam is fascinating to watch when he’s in the throes of explaining something he has feelings about. They can continue discussing the letters later. There’s plenty of time.

* * *

Storytelling night is very different when half the attendees are high. The prize that Kevin and Sam won at their puzzle is something they call ‘dream grass’, and if it’s put inside their storytelling campfire it makes everything a hundred times more enthralling. At least, that’s what Dean said when he’d dumped the bag-load of leaves into the fire.

“You do know you’re the worst,” Jody says. She’s sprawled out with back against a rock, eyes glazed over. “You’re the absolute worst.”

Sam is shifted out so he can’t offer a pithy reply, but Dean cheerfully says, “You’re welcome. Best idea Sam’s had in ages. This is gonna be my most successful story ever.”

It’s Dean turn to tell tonight’s story. It had even started promising, with Dean looming over the fire as he started a dramatic tale about a pack that traveled all over the world in search of new things (“Why would they even do that,” Sam had said, “they’ll be exposing themselves to dangers they don’t know.” “That’s the _point_ , goddammit, can’t you at least wait until I’ve at least got a little peril going?”) but about the time his hero pack met another foreign pack, the dream grass kicked in and he’d trailed off, distracted.

Charlie apparently took that invitation to continue the story herself, and she’d introduced magical horned wolves with wings (“Horny wolves?” “Horn _ed_ wolves, for crying out loud, Dean!”) which Sam found so hysterical that he’d shifted mid-cackling laugh. Jody then declared that it’s high time _she_ have her turn because she has some cracking good stories she’d never had the chance to share. They’re still arguing about that at the moment.

As for Kevin, he apparently goes quiet when he’s high. The smell of the dream grass started out pungent but it’s changed into a cool, misty sort of scent that almost tickles up the nostrils. Kevin thought that he might feel anxious or vulnerable under its effects, but he doesn’t. He feels like he could just lie down and listen to these guys argue all night, their voices somehow reassuring even when they rise in pitch and volume.

It feels like… hovering midway between a shift, not two or four legged. It’s like the world is open to the potential of either, and Kevin is open with it. Kevin could be anything. He _is_ anything. Well, right now he’s lying on his stomach and trying to count blades of grass, because he could be anything if he wanted.

Castiel is sitting nearby, watching the current argument with interest. His eyes are alert, although just a few feet nearby Meg is lying on her back and muttering at the stars.

“No,” Meg’s saying. “ _That’s_ the big wolf. Big wolf doesn’t have a pack.”

“Big wolf could have a pack if they wanted,” Kevin says.

Meg cranes her neck to squint at him, and then she nods. “Kid might have a point.”

“Oh man,” Dean’s saying elsewhere. “By all means, if you want to have a go with your story, go ahead, but this is not the night to do it. This night is too awesome.”

“So I can tell an awesome story to go with,” Jody insists. “A long time ago in a forest far away there was…”

Dean and Jody tip over together, laughing like pups. The only wolf still upright is Castiel, who promptly says, “I’ll watch over you” with a kind of earnest solemnity that sets Dean off into fresh peals of laughter.

“Dude, no, no,” Dean says, once he’s calmed himself. “Not laughing at you, Cas. With you.”

“That’s all right,” Castiel says politely.

“Let me guess,” Kevin says. “Doesn’t affect you?”

“Sadly, no,” Castiel says. “Though I suspect that it wouldn’t make any difference if it did.”

Kevin bobs his head. “That is a very astute and self-referential thing to say.” Castiel’s responding smile is indulgent, and Kevin wonders how he could have ever been afraid of him. Or anyone else here.

Faint pressure on Kevin’s arm makes him look to his side. Sam’s muzzle is way too close, but Kevin doesn’t even get proper mental processing down before Sam’s crawling on top of him, however-many-pounds of four-legged wolf draped on top of him because while Sam can be anything, he's decided to become a fur coat.

“Ugh, oh my god, what.” Kevin braces his palms on the ground and tries to push up, fuzzily recalling a memory of Sam managing the same with Charlie. But Kevin only gets so far before he collapses back to the ground. Sam’s huffing laugh is warm against Kevin’s shoulder. “You’re heavy as balls.”

“Sam is significantly heavier than balls,” Castiel adds.

“I’ll say!” Kevin yells.

“Who’s heavier than balls?” Charlie chimes in.

“Sam,” Kevin says.

Sam protests that with a vehement yowl, his nose wet where he pokes it at Kevin’s arm.

A few feet away Meg takes a deep breath and looses a howl. A proper howl that startles Sam into silence. Lady has an impressive pair of lungs on her. Her song is loud, not quite mournful, not quite jubilant. Jody’s still two-legged but she shimmies over towards Meg, pressing their heads together, and then joins in a howl of her own.

Kevin feels Sam take a deep breath against his back, and braces himself for the howl that follows. Dean cracks up, rolling on the grass and kicking at air. He tries to howl but he’s laughing too much, especially when Charlie crawls onto his stomach and pokes at him to stop.

“You’re so embarrassing, Dean,” Charlie says. Still half-draped over him, she shifts out, takes a deep breath, and howls.

Kevin feels a shiver run through him as the voices crescendo. It has nothing to do with the dream grass. This is a pack chorus, and instinct has Kevin stubbornly resisting the weight pressing on him and rolling over until he’s on his back, Sam now spread across his torso. Kevin’s lungs fill with a howl, and he breathes it out in the air, joining the song.

Sam howls, too, and since he and Charlie are in the more appropriate form for this, they have quite the advantage of volume. Kevin shoves his hands into Sam’s thick fur, and this time the flush of envy that rises up in response feels different. It feels warm, bubbling in his chest, and it compels Kevin to comb his fingers through Sam’s mane, scrubbing hard when Sam’s tail whips against Kevin’s arm approvingly.

Kevin takes a long, pleasant breath once he’s finished. “Please tell me there are no side effects.”

Sam’s answering snort sounds an awful lot like a chuckle. Elsewhere, Dean and Jody start singing.

* * *

Morning is significantly less interesting than the night before. Kevin stirs awake to the sight of the open sky, which is disorienting at first. He’d gotten to used to sleeping underground, though there is something to be said for waking up with a cool breeze on his skin.

The storytelling fire has been properly put out – Castiel is probably to thank for that. Sam is two-legged, face mashed against the grass. Charlie is nearby, curled in a cozy circle with her muzzle resting on her paws. Meg is awake and blinking blearily at the beautiful morning sky.

Kevin sits up slowly, pushing Sam’s arm off of him and ignoring the way Sam squints at him in annoyance. He feels sluggish as hell, but is able to drag himself up by sheer force of will, and heads towards the nearest stream.

Dean is already farther down the stream, wide awake and cleaning his teeth. He starts a little when Castiel trots up to his side, carrying a cloth in his mouth. Dean snorts, but he accepts the cloth and scratches behind Castiel’s ears. Castiel beams at him and lowers himself down on all fours, tail wagging.

Sam appears at Kevin’s side, looking as exhausted as Kevin feels. They start washing up, and Sam snorts when he sees Castiel flop over onto his back, asking for scratches. “Of course Dean gets a towel.”

“Still can’t get used to that,” Kevin says.

Sam yawns. “They used to be very close. It was just a matter of time before they get there again, I guess.”

“What? Oh, you mean Dean and Cas. I guess that makes sense. Actually I was talking about how Cas is the biggest wolf I’ve ever seen, and the… most docile, if that’s the right word. It still messes with my head sometimes. Does that bother you?”

“Does what bother me?”

“When you’re both two-legged, he’s smaller,” Kevin says. “But you’re four-legged, he’s bigger.”

“I don’t notice anymore, to be honest. He’s just Cas.”

Kevin supposes that makes sense. Plenty of things are getting normalized for him the longer he stays here. One day he might even stop getting that urge to roll over every time Dean or Castiel even so much as look in his direction.

“Hey, I forgot to tell you,” Sam says. “I finished your belt. Well, almost finished. Just need to do some final adjustments on you.”

“Well, that took long enough,” Kevin says with a laugh. Sam ducks his head sheepishly, though Kevin does understand that crafting is a tricky thing. Kevin’s still learning himself, and the belt he’s wearing was made by Kate, who was much more clever with that sort of thing.

The matter of the belt also means that Kevin gets to visit Sam’s burrow for the first time since he’d arrived in the enclave. To be fair, Kevin’s only ever been in Jody’s burrow, because he’d been curious about her carvings and other creative works, and he’d been so bowled over by the experience he’d decided that he’d never enter anyone else’s burrow ever because there’s only so much inadequacy that he’d willingly invite into his life.

Kevin’s burrow is a work in progress. He’s only been here a few months, after all. One day it’ll be awesome.

Sam, on the other hand, has had his burrow for years. When, later that day, Kevin trots behind Sam through the mouth of it, it feels like he’s being wrapped up in a blanket of Sam. The earth has had years to soak up Sam's scent, after all. Kevin treads lightly, amused that he doesn’t need to duck his head through the main tunnel – either Sam chose this burrow because of its size, or adjusted it along the way – and into the main room.

Kevin shifts. “Wow,” he says.

There are drawings on the walls, some of them scratched directly into the packed earth, others formed by bits and pieces of string, twigs, small rocks and colorful trinkets that must have been difficult to get. Another tunnel leads off into his private rooms, but this itself is amazing. Sam has even hung a metal spoke thing at the ceiling’s highest point – when Kevin lies down, it looks like a sun and moon orbiting each other.

“Here it is.” Sam's moved to a low flat rock he appears to use as a table, and picks up the belt he’d been working on. “Put it on, I’ll adjust it on you.”

Kevin starts a little, grateful that Sam’s back is still to him so he can’t see it. Of course putting a new belt on means removing an old one. If Kevin is self-conscious then that’s just in his head, he’s flushing warm for no reason whatsoever other than those stupid jokes Brian used to make about dick sizes. Because that doesn’t matter. They’re wolves for crying out loud, he’s just being stupid again.

“You’ve got awesome stuff.” Kevin peels off his belt, pushing it down his chest and over his legs before setting it on the floor. The burrow’s ceiling isn’t high enough to stand so he sits back on his haunches and tries his best not to be conscious of his soft cock resting on his thigh. “How’d you make that? That one up there?”

“That?” Sam turns around. He glances up at the metal piece and then back to Kevin’s face. He does not look down. “I didn’t. A friend made it for me. I have no idea how she did it.” He moves around to Kevin’s back. “Arms out.”

“That is way cool.” Kevin tries not to move when Sam lays the strip of hide on his shoulder and down his chest. Sam’s fingers are very careful, very delicate. Kevin wonders if that is simply the way he is, or if he’d spent years working against the physicality he was born with. He must, at least on some level. It hasn't missed Kevin’s attention how Sam almost always makes sure they’re sitting down before talking, and when that isn’t possible, the way he adjusts his posture when he’s standing.

“Is that too tight?” Sam asks. When Kevin says no, he brings in the second piece, winding it around Kevin’s waist. “Okay, up on your knees, and then I’m going to tie it down.”

Kevin rises up on to his knees. If he were Dean he’d make a joke at this point and ask what Sam thinks of his butt. Channing used to say he had a nice butt. Sam has a nice butt, too. Shapely. He should stop thinking about butts.

“Looking good,” Sam says, which almost makes Kevin choke. “Okay, shift out, let’s see if it stays in place.”

After all the measurements are made, Sam says it’ll take another day or so to complete the adjustments, and Kevin will have a brand new belt. Kevin puts his current belt back on and already misses the shape of the new one.

“You’ve filled out more,” Sam says. “Your shape has changed.”

That’s what happens when he’s surrounded by mostly older wolves in a larger enclave. Kevin even almost managed to lift Sam last night. He will get there. “No helping my height, though.”

“Don’t say that.”

Kevin laughs. “What, ‘cause it’s not true?”

“Because you’re not just saying _short_ , you’re saying _less_. I can hear it,” Sam says. Kevin jumps when Sam’s hand lands on his shoulder, and then he’s on the receiving end of Sam’s very serious, scowling-through-his-bangs face. “You keep doing that, you keep measuring yourself against… something.”

“Don’t make that sound like a bad thing,” Kevin says defensively.

Sam sighs. “I get it. You work hard, you want be helpful and you want to be more. But don’t put yourself down on your way there, okay?”

Kevin feels – not angry, not exactly. Sam’s stupid face makes him feel anxious, especially when he’s all worried and earnest like this. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re projecting.”

“Oh, really?” Sam leans back and crosses his arms. “You still growl at me sometimes. I don’t even _do_ alpha displays and you feel threatened.”

“Can you blame me?” Kevin blurts out. Which is a mistake because Sam’s face falls and Kevin wants to bite his own tail off. Only a few minutes ago he was thinking about how Sam works so hard to be more than what he is, and here Sam’s trying to say how Kevin _is_ more than what he is, and this is the weirdest argument to be in. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Kevin says.

“Yes, you did,” Sam says. “It’s okay.”

“No, no, it’s... Sam, you’ve experienced things I can’t even imagine. I feel like…” Kevin makes shapes with his hands as he struggles to put that into words. “I feel weak. Unformed.”

Sam’s scowls deepens when that sinks in. “Kevin, you shouldn’t envy that. I would never ever wish for you to have been here through the worst of it. I’m glad you weren’t. You’re new and vibrant and so full of energy, and you believe in the pack when the pack doesn’t believe in itself.”

“That’s nothing—”

“It’s _not_ ,” Sam insists, almost growling. “It’s important, because I’ve forgotten things along the way. You’ve reminded me how to… find joy in new things.” Sam is very close, and his hand is warm where it gently cups Kevin’s face. The touch is startling – as startling as Sam’s eyes, his scent, the little lines around his mouth that Kevin wants to trace with his fingers.

Kevin has always been aware of Sam’s handsomeness. It had come hand-in-hand with the rest of him, the package of prime wolf that had made Kevin’s second ears go back and throat rumble the first time they’d met. But there is also _this_ , the rest of Sam that is kind and sometimes angry and  sometimes lonely, and all that brings this wolf down from godlike to reachable. Touchable. Soft, where one least expects it.

Kevin wraps his hand around Sam’s wrist, feeling the strength and reassuring solidness of the muscle and bone. There must have been others like Kevin who’d been too afraid to come close, or only came close in expectation of what a wolf like Sam is ‘supposed’ to be. Kevin feels wretched all over again, because he’s supposed to be _smart_ , dammit.

“You’re right that there’s a lot that’s been lost,” Sam says quietly. “Not just friends and family, which is… a pain all its own. But stories, songs, things that live in our heads. Some of that lives in you now, thanks to Chuck, but there’s so much beauty that’s just… gone. I mourn that, and I mourn that you won’t know the good parts, but I think it’s a good trade-off.”

“And we can make new songs,” Kevin says. His stomach flips at Sam’s sudden smile, so bright Kevin thinks he could curl up and sleep in it like he would a beam of sunshine. “We’ve already started making new stories.”

“That’s true.” Sam cocks his head, considering. “You should have a turn on storytelling night.”

“What makes you think I haven’t started plotting something already? Aha!” Kevin is compelled by the proximity of Sam, relieved at the sight of him relaxing again, just how he should be. Sam’s hand comes to the back of Kevin’s neck, drawing him in so their foreheads touch.

“I’m glad to know you, Kevin,” Sam says.

Kevin takes a deep breath. “Ditto.” Sam’s scent has crawled up into the top five of Kevin’s favorite things. Kevin wants to nose at Sam’s ear and neck, get better acquainted with it, maybe nibble the skin there a little.

Wait, what?

“What was that?” Sam pulls back, frowning. “You okay?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Kevin hears himself say. He thought he’d squawked only in his head, but apparently not. “Poked my funny bone, is all.”

“Okay.” Sam takes a deep breath, head tilted back and eyes closed. His whole chest heaves when he does that, and although it’s nothing Kevin hasn’t seen before he’s now compelled to avert his gaze. And not think about nibbling anything else. “So I’ll get back to you once I’m done with the belt?”

“Yes, that’s good,” Kevin says. “Right.”

* * *

The thing is, there’s plenty about Sam that is great. The others can be great, too, but Sam is easier to be around, even when he’s making Kevin nervous. There is a gentleness about him that’s drawn Kevin in, but towards _kinship_ , which may involve belly rubs and roughhousing, sure, but not _yearning._ Kevin isn’t supposed to look at Sam and feel the urge to bury his face in Sam’s neck – not to scent him, but just to stay there. Because Sam’s neck is a nice place. Because Sam’s person is a nice person.

Kevin _wants_. Frankly, it’s the fact that it blindsided him that pisses him off the most. It’s not as though he sought this out on purpose, and if he meant to lust after someone there are other options in the enclave. Oh, plus the fact that he _doesn’t_ want to lust after anyone at all.

Sam is still new to Kevin. Sam is interesting, and he makes Kevin feel interesting. Sam is attractive, though previously that had only been an issue as long as Kevin read the flush in his skin as envy. Maybe it was envy, at the start, but it hasn’t been for a while. Kevin wants to shift out and wrap himself around Sam and nuzzle the back of his head and maybe rub a little _harder_ and… Yeah, that’s definitely not envy.

There is plenty that isn’t right about this, but the one thing that Kevin hates himself for is that he’d _just_ understood the importance of dismissing his flawed assumptions about Sam. Kevin can’t become the good friend Sam deserves if he starts thinking about Sam in terms of what he awakens in Kevin’s baser urges. That’s not fair.

Kevin tells himself it’s mind over matter. It’s just like adapting to the ways of this pack, and Kevin will adapt to this burgeoning thing inside him. After all, Sam didn’t ask for it either. It’s not his fault. Things should proceed as normal.

For the most part, things do. The next full moon is a good one – Kevin, Castiel and Meg even join the run, and Castiel accidentally knocks over a tree in his enthusiasm. The puzzles taper off, new ones no longer arriving when the older ones are solved. Dean builds a common larder in one of the empty burrows to keep their food supplies, and bounds around the enclave in pride for days. Sam finishes the new belt and installs it on Kevin, and the goosebumps that rise at Sam’s touch are manageable.

It’s all hunky dory.

One day in the midst of all this hunky dory, the warning siren comes on. Kevin is in the middle of playing a stick game with Charlie and Sam when they hear it. Sam stands up first, pinpointing which door is going to open.

“New arrival,” Sam says.

“Come on!” Charlie says excitedly. “Let’s go see.”

There’s a very strange sense of almost-déjà vu about sitting on top of a raised look-out point, watching as a portion of the glass wall is lifted out of place to partially allow in two white-grey transport containers. So this is what it looked like from their point of view.

The container doors open. One wolf steps out from each: one female and one male, both seemingly around Kevin’s age and with similar dark coats. They’re understandably bewildered, sniffing the air curiously and keeping a wary distance from each other. At Kevin’s side Charlie chuckles under her breath, and Kevin just knows that she’s thinking about how _he_ bolted when he arrived.

“Shut up,” Kevin mumbles.

“Aww.” Charlie pats him on the arm. “But you had an awesome entrance. Truly. I’m gonna go say hi.”

She shifts down to four legs and trots down the hill. Along the way she moves in loose, playful circles to show the newcomers that she’s friendly. The new male lowers himself down to the ground anxiously, but the female tilts her head, considering.

“I’m never gonna live that down, am I?” Kevin says with a sigh.

Sam chuckles and nudges his elbow, which earns him a half-hearted smack. “You were pretty fast. I got a good workout.”

Sure, Kevin relapses sometimes, especially during times like now when Sam’s so close, his scent wafting over like a lure, the curve of his shoulder so nearby that Kevin could rest his head on it if he tipped over a little. Kevin’s young, it happens, it’s a price he’s ready to pay if it means he can continue to enjoy Sam’s company.

Relapsing means that Kevin drifts a little closer, ostensibly to poke his elbow in Sam’s side and bask in the way Sam laughs.

Then a terrible thing happens. Sam’s extensive limbs mean that his arm has a ridiculous range of movement, and can come up behind Kevin when he’s not expecting it. Sam’s hand lands on Kevin’s head, the fingers digging through his hair, finding his scalp. Scratching. Bliss. Kevin makes a stupid sound and is too busy enjoying himself to be embarrassed that he’s made a stupid sound.

Now, these relapses have been manageable. Even the time when Kevin joined Sam for his morning routine and got to watch him do his stretches while talking about how he once ate all the roots in storage in protest of something his brother did, Kevin could restrict his interest to solemn nods and interested chatter. Kevin did not insinuate anything inappropriate, or let his gaze linger too long.

He’d definitely never whined at Sam’s touch. Until today.

Kevin’s eyes snap open to the sight Sam’s weird, almost contemplative face. Kevin’s own face grows hot and he automatically ducks, only he can’t because he’s caught in the loop of Sam’s arm, and that just makes him smack his face against his forearm.

“Ow,” Kevin mutters.

“You okay?” Sam unwinds his arm but he’s too close, much too close, and Kevin’s mouth is suddenly dry. “Oh.” Something in Sam’s voice makes Kevin start. Sam’s gaze is not on Kevin but on the newcomers, who are now sniffing each other. “Young female wolf. Yes, of course.”

It takes a moment for Sam’s meaning to sink in, and then Kevin chokes on air. “Oh hell, I didn’t—”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Sam’s _touching_ him, hand now cupped to the back of Kevin’s head and shaking him in what is probably meant to be a reassuring way. “It’s almost spring now, right, your body’s just getting a hormonal jolt, especially with new scents in the air.”

This is a whole different kind of mortifying. Kevin is unable to decide which outcome is worse – the one he’d feared, or the one he’s actually getting where Sam is _still talking._

“Of course there’s still weeks on,” Sam’s babbling, “and you’ll have to ready your burrow for that, if you’re up for it. Um, pun not intended. But ventilation is the most important, most people don’t know that. Ventilation and keeping hydrated, definitely.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Okay.” Sam’s jaw clicks when it shuts. He blinks a couple of times. “It’s just that it’s part of what we are, and there’s nothing—”

“Oh my god.” Kevin buries his face in his hands.

“Because we’re pack. And, and, and pack look out for each other. I’m looking out for you. You can always ask me anything.”

“About ruts?” Kevin hisses in a low voice. “You don’t need to give me the _talk_ , Sam, I know how it works, I’ve had a couple already.”

“Oh.” Sam actually looks flustered. “Oh. Yeah. Of course you have.”

What a life, how is this Kevin’s life, why is Sam so annoying today. Kevin grumbles to himself, stubbornly ignoring the weirdness of the silence that’s settled over them. Sam starts to say something once or twice, only to think better of it. Kevin is not in the right mind to meet the newcomers – he doesn’t want to come off as the Grumpy One when there are others more suited to that honor.

“I’ll meet the new wolves later,” Kevin mutters. He leaves before Sam can say anything, hoping to disappear into his burrow to preserve some dignity, but of course Sam just _has_ to follow because he can’t leave it well alone.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, keeping pace with Kevin. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know you didn’t. I understand what you’re saying, it’s just part of what we are, everyone ruts, yadda yadda.”

That stops Sam in his tracks. Kevin could keep on walking but he stops as well, yanked back by some unseen string, which means that he catches the weird grimace that passes over Sam’s face.

“What,” Kevin says. “ _What_?”

“Nothing,” Sam says.

“You can’t say ‘nothing’ when you don’t mean ‘nothing’. C’mon, I thought that was something we agreed on.” Kevin pauses, and looks at Sam properly. The bubble of anxiety in Kevin’s chest deflates at Sam’s hesitation, the way his eyes dart to the side self-consciously. There’s only room for one of them to be self-conscious here.

Kevin rewinds what he’d just said. He only acknowledged that he understood Sam, and that rutting is just a part of what they are and that everyone does it. Certainly no reason for Sam to freeze like that, unless… “Oh.”

Sam looks around quickly, making there’s no one nearby. Once he’s sure he ducks his head a little, just enough to make some serious eye contact, earnest and cautious and maybe a little terrified. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay,” Kevin whispers. “Of course.”

Sam smiles a little, a thank you, and then he’s drawing back, a veil of an easy smile dropping back over his face. “I’m sorry, this is about you and I made it about me, that’s douchey, I’m sorry.”

“Quit apologizing,” Kevin says.

“Yeah, of course,” Sam says quickly. “I’m just… you can still come to me for – for advice or anything. Just because I can’t do that _now_ doesn’t mean I never did.”

“Can’t,” Kevin echoes. “Just you, or you and your brother…?”

Sam looks slightly panicky now, but he’s still standing there and not changing the subject. “I can’t say about Dean, that’s private, but uh… It’s been like that the past few years for me. It just stopped happening. I mean, I can still get um…” He makes a loose gesture downwards, which Kevin interprets as either ‘hard’ or ‘off’, and, bizarrely, his cheeks have a high flush now. “But not, not the _proper_ rut.”

It takes more than a handful of seconds for Kevin to process the dissonance of someone who appears outwardly virile and magnificent in all ways not being able to rut. As for Sam, he exhales loudly and then barks a breathless laugh.

“Feels good to say that out loud, actually,” Sam says quietly. He still looks somewhat shaken, yet proud of himself.

Kevin nods. “A relief.”

“Yeah.” Sam’s smile is small and sheepish. “So, you know… All of us have our delicate subjects. If you ever want to share – not that you’re obligated, of course, oh my god – I’m, uh. I’m here.”

“I know,” Kevin replies. Sam is just trying to help. That’s what Sam does, even if he’s boneheadedly annoying in the way he goes about it. Kevin’s never heard of male wolves that don’t rut, unless they’re old or sick, and Sam is neither. At least, he’s not sick where Kevin can see. “Are you sick?” he blurts out.

“No, no, not sick,” Sam says with a laugh. “Just, you know. Rearranged a little.”

“Oh.” That makes sense. It’s awful, but it makes sense. There are so many different kinds of scars, though the use of a word like ‘rearranged’ strikes at something sharp inside Kevin. Of course Sam would downplay it like that, choosing to feed only a small slice of what he must be bearing to someone else, because a wolf like Sam must be tough, right? A wolf like Sam must be able to take it.

Compelled by a sudden flare of affection, sympathy and foolishness, Kevin surges forward, wrapping Sam’s torso in a solid hug. It’s a mark of camaraderie. Pack solidity. All good things. Friendly things.

Sam looses another shaky breath, his chin bumping the top of Kevin’s head. “We cool?”

“We cool,” Kevin says, his voice muffled. He realizes, belatedly, that his voice is muffled because his face is mashed against a pec. A solid, slightly curved pec, the nipple within breathing distance. Spring is coming and waking things up. The urge slinks into Kevin’s bloodstream, opening his mouth and biting.

Well, not _hard_ biting. Not biting down. Just an open-mouthed test-bite on the firm muscle that is right there, because for someone like Sam perhaps a mere nibble won’t do.

“Uh,” Sam says.

Kevin snaps back to awareness. His teeth are around Sam’s pec.

There is not enough panic in the world for this. In fact, the best thing Kevin can do right now is act on a lesson he’s learned from Castiel – by immediately shifting out and taking a sprinting leap to escape. Four legs are fast, and they carry Kevin well away before Sam manages to get a word out that isn’t, “Wha—”.

Time for some passionate hiding.

* * *

On the plus side, Sam leaves him alone for the rest of the day. No unwanted questions, no leaving the floor open for Kevin to explain what he doesn’t want to. There is enough food in the burrow that Kevin doesn’t need to leave, and even if he does the larder is nearby, as is the sandbox. Kevin can subsist just where he is.

On the minus side, Kevin’s skin now has a slightly more comprehensive imprint of Sam’s. The feel of Sam lingers like an old burn, despite Kevin’s efforts to scratch it off. And Kevin _does_ try. He rolls on the floor of his burrow, scratches his back against the wall, holds his four-legged self as tightly in a ball as he can manage. The memory of Sam stays, perseveres, insists on making Kevin imagine what other parts of Sam might feel like.

This is hunger, though it’s so different from what Kevin expects of himself that it takes too long for him to acknowledge what it is. Perhaps Kevin doesn’t want to, because it brings to light a fundamental part of himself. He is a wolf and he wants what he’s not supposed to. He is on the cusp of his rut, and he can only imagine one other wolf with him.

Time blurs. Another day or more passes, maybe. Kevin sleeps, wakes, moves restlessly around his burrow, sleeps some more. His thighs ache, his mouth is dry, his eyes are scratchy. Kevin puts his paws over his head and wraps his tail around himself. Just the idea of doing anything feels exhausting.

It’s almost a miracle that he can smell the intruder when he does. It’s a female, which is confusing as fuck because should he be relieved or afraid? Relived _and_ afraid? It’s Meg, whose face is blurry but her scent is strong.

“Your rut is early, kid,” she says. “It happens sometimes when we’re under stress. Nothing too serious yet, but you’re dehydrated.” Strong hands lift his head, guiding him to a bowl of water. Kevin laps at it tiredly.

Kevin falls asleep again. He’s woken up by loud growls and barking, not within the burrow itself but somewhere nearby. Meg is still next to him, patting a damp cloth on his head.

“None of the ladies are in heat yet, but that shouldn’t be a problem.” Meg’s voice is as calm as anything. She runs her hands down Kevin’s muzzle, thumbs resting just under Kevin eyes. Meg’s gaze is very steady. “May I help you, Kevin?”

Kevin draws back his lips and growls.

“You’re going to get sicker if you keep suppressing yourself. That won’t do at all. ” Meg carefully sets him down when Kevin barks his reply. “This is what’s going to happen. Either you fulfill your rut, or you spontaneously get better, or you keep on like this and get worse. If you get worse, the leviathan are going to intervene. I’m not trying to scare you, I’m just telling you the facts.”

Kevin swallows through his very-dry throat. Perhaps he’ll spontaneously get better. He’s good stock, after all.

Meg doesn’t push anymore after that. She wipes him down carefully, once or twice glancing self-consciously at where the leviathan’s cameras are inside the packed earth of the walls.

Kevin’s going to get better any moment now. He’s never been _really_ sick before, after all. Any moment now. Whoever’s fighting outside the burrow should just quit it, they’re getting really loud.

* * *

The next time Kevin’s aware of his surroundings, he is no longer in his burrow. He’s in a warmly-lit room of four walls, a ceiling and floor, all padded. Water and food are presented in bowls, a litter pad on one side. Kevin’s right foreleg has a tube stuck in it – pumping him full of liquid drugs, hopefully. Kevin’s head still feels foggy but he’s stopped shivering, which is nice.

There’s the sound of movement, and then Charlie is touching him. Her hands are cool where they brush through his fur, and her voice is soft. As far as Kevin can tell, there’s no one else in the room.

“They’ve put medicine in you, I think,” Charlie says quietly. “They took you and me a few hours ago, I’ve just been chilling in here, waiting for you to not look like you’re about to die.” She tries to sound light-hearted, but it falls a little flat. “Dean and the others did their best to stop them taking us but… you know how it is.”

Kevin drinks a little and tries to eat a little, but it’s hard going. Charlie talks to him through it, her voice a comfort as he drifts in and out of a lethargic daze.

Somewhere in the middle of that, Kevin falls asleep. Then when he wakes up, Charlie’s gone, but there’s another wolf in the room with him.

Kevin doesn’t recognize this one. Wait, she’s one of the new wolves, Kevin just hadn’t seen her in her two-legged form yet. She smells like she’s doing her best to be brave, but she’s taken up the corner of the room farthest away from Kevin, and she’s keeping her eyes on him.

“Hey,” she says warily. “I’m Krissy. What a welcome to the enclave, eh?”

Kevin snorts, then turns over onto his other side to go back to sleep.

He misses Jody being put in the room with him, but her scent is there when he next wakes up, this time with Meg sitting over him. She combs through his fur a little, huffing under her breath when Kevin whines a protest.

“You know what they’re doing, don’t you?” Meg says. “They’re putting us in here one after another, giving you a chance to fulfill your rut. This particular offer is still wide open, by the way. You’re not gonna let such a small age difference get to you, mm?”

Kevin snaps at her hand weakly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Meg shakes her head. “Get on with your bad self, Kev.”

The leviathan aren’t going to let him die, not this way, not so stupidly. He’s important. Every wolf is important, and every wolf is worth saving. Maybe they have some new drugs to settle this cycle and calm him down. That would be nice.

Or maybe they’d take Meg away and bring Sam in.

Kevin laughs to himself. They’d never do that. That would be just as stupid, because he and Sam can’t have precious new babies to keep both their lines going. Yet it does smell like Sam is in the room, and even with Kevin’s clogged up nose he’d know that scent anywhere. It’s packed earth warmed by the sun, just the right temperature to roll around on.

“You need to drink,” Sam says.

Kevin jerks in surprise. That is indeed Sam leaning over him, worry pouring off of him in waves. Kevin’s humiliation is entirely complete, because there’s no way Sam can misunderstand why the leviathan brought him here. They’d watched it all, put two-and-two together. Someone must have decided that this was a preferable route to take, as ridiculous at it is.

“I know they’ve got the tubes wired into you,” Sam says. “But your tongue is drying out. Will you let me?”

Sam is very careful, very gentle. He wets his fingers in the water bowl and then wipes them in Kevin’s mouth. It helps, though the proximity of Sam is a dangerous thing it itself. Kevin feels himself growing more alert, the cloud in his head clearing in the presence of something so familiar, so comforting.

“They think I can help you,” Sam says quietly. Then, after a long moment, “I want to help you.”

Kevin growls and snaps his jaws in the air, only for Sam to wrap his arms around him, stubborn bastard. Even two-legged Sam has advantages over Kevin, especially in his current state. He holds Kevin in his arms, a leg over Kevin’s body, grounding him. It feels good to be touched. So good. Kevin thinks he could cry from it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Sam scratches at Kevin’s neck, which feels _amazing_. “Kevin, do you trust me?”

Kevin does. He really does. He bobs his head.

“I, uh…” Sam still has Kevin in a hold, but he starts stroking his head gently. Kevin sighs at the touch. “I guess I should start talking now. You can, um, stop me whenever, okay? Just a… story, I guess.”

Kevin stays quiet. Sam’s stories are always great.

Sam takes a deep breath. “Kevin, you’re wonderful. You’re funny and smart, and you’re so… I like being around you. I want to know everything about you. I want to see you smile all the time. I watch you when you run and I want to bury my face in your fur.”

What?

“But I’m… you know what I am. Me and Dean, we’re from a particular stock. Generations and generations of specific breeding in us, to make us stronger, aggressive. Then we got too aggressive, I guess. When I stopped rutting I was actually relieved, ‘cause then there wouldn’t be… ‘cause then I wouldn’t pass it on. I was literally bred to be an aggressive wolf ‘cause they thought that increases the chance of survival, and you deserve so much better than that. You deserve a new wolf, a fresh wolf, someone just like yourself.”

Kevin is very still.

“But I still want this!” Sam exclaims, laughing breathlessly at himself. “I know all the reasons, I’ve thought about it so many times. You’re crucial stock as well, but I think… I think you don’t want any of the others. And that… _fucking hell_ , Kevin, that gives me a rush like – like you wouldn’t believe. I know, I know that’s terrible, I know it’s not what—”

Kevin yips softly, wiggling in Sam’s arms to rub his face against Sam’s. Sam growls at him, pushing his body against Kevin’s, and it may the wrong body shape and the wrong vocal chords but hell if it doesn’t make Kevin’s blood sing. This is what he wants. Sam is smiling and nuzzling his face.

“You are very important to me,” Sam says quietly. “I would be honored if you’d let me help you.”

Kevin doesn’t know how this would work, but apparently Sam does, because he is clever. Sam is also strong, and guides Kevin to lie on top of him, miraculously finding some way for them to fit despite their different shapes. Kevin yelps when his cock, sore and neglected, presses against the hard plane of Sam’s stomach.

“It doesn’t always have to go inside,” Sam whispers. “Sometimes it’s enough like this.”

Kevin didn’t know that. At Sam’s urging Kevin starts to move against him, haltingly at first and then firmly. This part, at least, is familiar though this time he’s rutting against someone else instead of the floor. This is a tremendous improvement, especially with the way Sam whispers against his ear, frantic secretive things like, “That’s good, just like that, you can go harder than that, c’mon, you know what I can take.”

The rut is a function but in this it is also a joy. Sam growls when Kevin is close, as though he can feel it from the way Kevin’s shaking. Sam grabs handfuls of fur to hold Kevin close, and his strength is such a wonderful, reassuring thing. Kevin can count on Sam to handle this, to take care of him, to make sure that everything will turn out all right.

The first orgasm is good but it’s not enough. Sam’s on the job though, immediately wrapping his fingers tightly around Kevin’s knot. Kevin bleats in shock, but it’s so _good_. Sam milks him with precision and firmness, nothing hesitant about his touch. Sam’s face is intense, as though he’s the one in a rut, and in a way he is, isn’t he? This is their rut, and Sam is with him in every way that matters.

Second orgasm goes into a third, and then something in Kevin finally pops with relief. He collapses against Sam, spent and sated. He should be too exhausted for anything but he somehow manages to perk when he scents another new smell in the air. Kevin shifts a little off of Sam and looks down to where – holy shit – Sam’s jerking himself off. Kevin’s seen Sam’s dick plenty of times but not like this, not so thick and flushed. It’s mesmerizing.

“Just, uh…” Sam licks his lips, smiling sheepishly. “Gotta, you know. Don’t mind me.”

Kevin huffs a weak laugh and arranges his head on Sam’s shoulder, watching him get to work, tugging at his erection and using Kevin’s come to slick up the way. Kevin wants to do that. His hands are smaller than Sam’s but he’ll figure something out, he’s resourceful like that.

“Oh god.” Sam buries his face in the fur near Kevin’s ear as he gets close, his pants growing in harshness and rapidity until they culminate in a choked cry. Kevin yelps with him, shocked by the sudden sharp smell of someone else’s come. Kevin pushes his hip against Sam’s hand, urging him to paint his fur. He feels Sam smile against him and then Sam’s doing it, returning the favor of marking him up.

They breathe quietly together, time bleeding back into the world and the confusion of the rut easing away. Kevin’s head clears up, his thoughts sliding back into alignment. He sees the room and its large cameras. The leviathan just had quite a show, not that Kevin cares. They let Sam in here, they must have decided that it would’ve been better than the alternatives. Sam smells happy, and that’s what matters.

It’s much easier to think now, and though there are a number of emotions running through Kevin at the moment, regret is not among them.

* * *

Kevin falls asleep with Sam holding him, but when he wakes up, he’s back in his burrow. The dissonance is startling, but from the taste in his mouth they must have let him sleep after his rut to help him recover. Kevin rolls around a little, sniffing the air. Sam’s scent is still strong, but it’s only on him, not in his burrow. He will have to go outside to investigate.

It’s bright out, and a relief to get some fresh air and stand up after goodness knows how long. Kevin heads over to the nearest stream where he drinks his fill and washes his face. He catches his distorted reflection in the water, and although there’s nothing about it that’s unfamiliar, he swears that he feels new. Renewed. Like the turn of a new season.

Charlie is the first to find him there, doing a little victory wave to celebrate his being out and about. “We were all bummed for a while there. Sam in particular.”

“He does get worried,” Kevin says.

Charlie raises her eyebrows coyly. She can smell Sam on him of course. There is no hiding that from her, or anyone else in the pack. “Sure, if by worried you mean running around in circles howling at the door they took you through.”

Kevin shouldn’t be exhilarated by that. He really shouldn’t. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I told him to do that.”

“I’m glad,” Charlie says firmly.

“You’re glad that Sam ran around circles?”

“I’m glad that they let Sam be with you. I was afraid that they’d take you away to another pack. That’s what they did to me.”

Kevin starts. “Oh. I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be, I love it here.” Charlie isn’t angry, just calm and resolute. “I’ve had my heats but I wouldn’t mate with anyone they put with me, so they just moved me altogether. Four times so far. They – the leviathan – don’t know it’s ‘cause I prefer females. I haven’t been lucky enough to find someone yet. But I’m hoping.”

“It’s a good hope,” Kevin says.

“So if they come to take you away, I’ll be first the fight them off.” Charlie squeezes Kevin’s shoulder. “I’m really happy for you.”

Kevin manages a thank you, though it feels too weak in the face of Charlie’s fortitude. She insists that he join the rest of the pack if he’s up for it, since a new supply drop happened while he was under and they haven’t distributed all the goodies yet.

Everyone’s gathered in the clearing. Everyone includes Sam, who is arranging little balls of string into a pile. The others perk up when Kevin approaches, but he must admit that he’s only conscious of Sam.

Sam, who starts a little when he sees Kevin, his eyes absurdly large. It’s the same ol' Sam, yet it isn’t, because he looks somewhere between terrified and excited, and trying to seem like he’s not somewhere between terrified and excited, and he’s just staring at Kevin without saying anything.

“Hey,” Kevin says.

“Hey,” Sam says.

Kevin sits down. He knows what Sam’s penis looks like when it’s erect. That is vital information, though fuck knows why Kevin’s thinking about it now, when they’re surrounded by the rest of the pack.

“Okay!” Dean says, way too loudly. “Krissy and Aaron, this is Kevin. Kevin, Krissy and Aaron.”

The two new wolves are among them, and Kevin waves a little hello. Aaron still seems a little anxious, almost as though he’s trying to stay as far away from the center circle without actually leaving the center circle.

Krissy, however, grins at Kevin. “We’ve met.”

“Oh my god,” Kevin chokes.

“Krissy,” Dean says warningly.

“Dean,” Sam says.

“Can I call dibs on those little plastic cup things? ‘Cause I think those would be great if we could keep them by the wading pool,” Jody says. “So… I guess I’m not calling dibs for them for myself, but for the wading pool. All in favor?”

“Don’t you guys have some sort of celebratory dance thing for when this happens?” Meg asks.

Dean sighs. “For when what happens, Meg?”

“A successful mating,” Meg says.

“That counts as a successful mating?” Dean asks.

“It wasn’t a mating,” Sam says.

“Ohohoh,” Meg guffaws. “Really?”

“It wasn’t a mating!” Kevin exclaims. “He hasn’t even courted me yet.”

“What?” Sam says.

“Don’t be mean,” Castiel says. “It was a successful coupling because Kevin has recuperated and is back to health, which is the most important thing. A coupling may count as a mating, but that is a private matter that they will have to discuss and is beyond our purview as a pack.”

“It _talks_ ,” Aaron whispers in a low, horrified voice.

Castiel frowns. “I’m not an it.”

“Aaron,” Dean says in a long-suffering tone, “I told you, this is just Cas, he’s one of us, you don’t have to—”

“Does no one really smell it?” Aaron says shrilly. “Am I the only normal one here?”

“Sadly, I cannot control my scent,” Castiel says. “Perhaps you’ll be more comfortable with me in my other shape.”

He shifts, which is probably a mistake because Aaron shrieks at the sight of Castiel’s four-legged shape, and defensively shifts out to his own other form, the fur along his spine up on end. Castiel starts to move towards him, his body low to the ground, but Aaron freaks out and bolts, leaping over the nearest bushes and away from the clearing to safety.

Everyone else watches him go, a sort of bemused silence falling over the circle. Castiel starts to go after him but stops when Jody catches the back of his neck, urging him to sit down.

“I’ll talk to him later,” Dean says.

“No, _I’ll_ talk to him later,” Jody says.

“He’s just tense,” Krissy says. “It’s not his fault.”

By this point Sam has moved from his original spot, close enough that his elbow brushes Kevin’s. Kevin looks up at him as the others continue to argue, and cocks his head in the direction Aaron went as he whispers, “Was I like that when I first got here?”

Sam’s mouth quirks, and he whispers back, “You were much more dashing.”

Kevin snorts. “Smooth.”

“If Jody gets the plastic cups I want the bamboo sticks!” Charlie shouts.

* * *

Kevin half-expected Dean to bail on the matter entirely, so he’s quite surprised when Dean does corner him alone later that day, arms crossed, and discomfited.

“I should be asking you ‘bout your intentions towards my brother,” Dean says, “but I think that has the potential to be the weirdest fucking conversation in the world, so can we just say that I did it, and leave it at that?”

Kevin shrugs. “Fine by me.”

“Okay.” Dean starts to turn away, and then turns back. “You, uh…”

“I’m not gonna take advantage of him,” Kevin says, rolling his eyes. “How the hell would I do that?”

“Hey, we already had that talk,” Dean says sharply. “And you agreed that you and Sam would figure it out yourselves and spare us the rest of it. If it doesn’t go anywhere, that’s fine, but if it does then you’ll do your best to be good for him ‘cause he’s gonna give his all to take care of you right back. Right? Right. ‘Cause that’s what we agreed. I’m gonna go now.”

Kevin watches Dean stalk off, muttering to himself.

Sam finds Kevin standing there like that, and he scowls in the direction Dean left in. “Everything okay?”

“Yep,” Kevin says. “I think it’s pretty good.”

“That’s good. Good. Hey! Do you want to, um…” Sam flails his hands in direction of his burrow. “If you want.”

Kevin isn’t sure what Sam’s asking, but he’d like to find out. “Sure.”

It isn’t even that long since the last time Kevin entered Sam’s burrow, but as soon as Kevin follows him in, he’s struck by the various changes. Sam’s things have been moved around and rearranged more neatly against the wall. There are more decorations hanging, and more of those fancy baskets that Jody’s been trying to teach Kevin how to make.

“Wow, spring cleaning or what?” Kevin asks.

“Uh, yeah, that too.” Sam sits down on his haunches. “You said you wanted to be courted?”

“I didn’t say that,” Kevin says. “I just said that I _haven’t_ been. Not what my preferences are.”

“Okay.” Sam clears his throat. “May I, then?”

Kevin stares at Sam for a long moment. Hope has lit up Sam’s face. He’s improved his burrow to impress him, and although Kevin would never have thought that he would be the recipient of such a gesture, there is no denying the full-body tingle it causes. Kevin licks his lips.

“Do you really want to bury your face in my back?” Kevin asks.

Sam blinks. “Yes.”

“Which one?”

“Any.” Sam coughs. “I’m not picky.”

“I like what you’ve done with your burrow.”

“Thank you. There’s no hunting anymore, but I can forage for you. I can build things, I’m good with my hands.” Sam pauses, and Kevin cannot decide which of them is redder at the dual implication. “Um. I meant, I can craft useful things for your use.”

“I know what you meant,” Kevin says.

“But the other one is also true. I can make your body feel good, as well.” Sam grins, but it’s a little shaky. “I can protect you.”

Kevin moves forward a little, just so they’re sitting with their knees almost touching. He’s never seen Sam so alert, watching Kevin’s every movement with an eagerness that is startling. Kevin puts his hands on Sam’s shoulders, and is enthralled by the way Sam’s chest jumps at the touch.

“You do know that I already know all those things.”

“Just a helpful reminder.”

Kevin grins. “Did you know that you’re freaking adorable?”

Sam’s expression is calm, but if he were shifted out, Kevin just knows he’d be wagging his tail furiously. “Okay.”

“Um.” Kevin starts to lean in, but stops. “Do you guys kiss here? Is that a thing you do?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yes, definitely.”

It starts slow. A little awkward, a little hesitant, both of them moving towards each other in small, jerky increments before their mouths finally meet. Sam is shaking, and since there’s a lot of Sam that’s a lot of shaking, especially when Kevin starts touching him. Sam’s as careful with this as he is with everything else, his fingers gentle where they run down Kevin’s neck and chest, learning him cautiously, so cautiously.

Sam opens his mouth but it’s Kevin who presses in to deepen the kiss. Kevin slides easily into Sam’s lap and the circle of his arms, relaxing against the strong cushion of Sam’s thighs. Pleasure out of a rut isn’t as intense, but Kevin is fully here to feel it and savor it. Sam’s kisses are languid and aching, but with the suggestion of strength behind them. Later, Kevin thinks. Later he will know that strength better.

They’re both breathing heavily by the time Kevin pulls back. Kevin can feel Sam hard underneath him, even through the layer of his belt.

“Do you want a demonstration?” Sam asks.

Kevin nods, and then reluctantly climbs off his lap to follow him into the inner rooms. The sleeping area is clean and cozy, with plenty of dried heather to roll around in. They watch each other undress, and their nudity seems charged in the intimacy of this place.

There are ways for them to have sex. Kevin already knew all of this in theory – never let it be said that Mom wasn’t candid or thorough – but it’s another thing to put it into practice, especially with someone as learned as Sam.

There’s more kissing and light touching, Sam drawing Kevin down so they lie next to each other and can better learn each other. Kevin quite likes it when he has a leg over Sam’s hip, as it lets them rub off like that. At first Kevin thinks that this is the agenda of the night, but then Sam draws away to collect a small container to show him.

“Isn’t that basking oil?” Kevin asks.

“There are other uses for it.” Sam dips his fingers in the clear liquid, and Kevin makes an embarrassing sound as the implication. “I see you’ve heard of that.”

“Yeah, but that’s… It feels good?”

“Yes,” Sam says.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Sam says, with a laugh that crinkles up his eyes. He’s still smiling as he shows Kevin how it’s done, by lying down on his stomach, his knees propping him up to keep his ass slightly off the ground, and then putting his fingers between his ass cheeks. Kevin wheezes helplessly, too busy being turned on to be embarrassed when Sam laughs.

“It can fit,” Kevin says in awe. He comes in closer, fitting his hands underneath Sam’s strong thighs. Sam slips his fingers out, and Kevin exhales shakily at the invitation. “Wow.”

“I think you know how this goes?” Sam says, breathless.

Kevin adjusts Sam’s legs to make space between them, Sam’s limbs strong but pliant under Kevin’s touch. Sam’s eyes are dark with expectation, and they flutter when Kevin lines his cock up and pushes in.

The slick is helpful, but that doesn’t prepare Kevin for the tightness of it. The sheer _heat_ of it, or the way Sam moans as he goes deeper, or the sight of his shaft sliding inside another person’s body. Sam makes a high, stuttering sound that slides straight down Kevin’s spine, drawing him in until he’s flush against Sam’s thighs.

It’s seeing Sam in a new light. It’s seeing _himself_ in a new light, how much he wants this.

Kevin may be humbled and overwhelmed, but he’s also fucking determined to do this properly. This means setting in a careful, steady pace that makes Sam whine. This means touching as much of Sam as he can – and blessed be, there is a lot of Sam to touch – up his hips, over his arms, through the beautiful lines of muscle down his back. Sam rises and twists against Kevin, almost insensate.

Sam’s eyes are wide, as though he cannot believe this is happening. Kevin reaches out, dragging a hand through Sam’s hair to hold it back in a loose ponytail, the better to watch his face.

Kevin is gentle, and tries not to think about why Sam would be surprised and shivering at this. Kevin is going to try to be everything new and wonderful for Sam. He will be. He’s already started.

Sam covers his face with a hand when he comes, sobbing behind his palm as he reaches his release. Kevin snaps his teeth, celebrating his glory as he finally gives in to his own pleasure. Sam somehow gets a leg hooked around the back of Kevin’s thighs, locking him in place as he shudders. It is good.

Also good is the way Sam sighs when Kevin lies down next to him afterward, finding space within the lee of Sam’s body to snuggle up into. Sam’s hand curls around the back of Kevin’s neck, the touch feather-light, and Kevin falls asleep with Sam’s chin resting on the top of his head.


	3. Chapter 3

Kevin knows Sam is a morning person. He’s been here long enough to be well-aware that Sam’s sleep cycle is shorter than most. So he isn’t all that surprised when he’s woken up by Sam _returning_ to his burrow, smelling stream-fresh and bringing food.

“What,” Kevin says groggily.

“Breakfast.” Sam’s not wearing his belt, so Kevin doesn’t feel at all guilty for glancing down to study the way his soft dick bounces. “Good mate,” Sam says in a joking deep voice. He leans in, nipping at Kevin’s shoulder. “Strong mate. Take good care.”

Kevin laughs and shoves weakly at him. “Oh my god, you dork.”

“Useful dork.” Sam’s smile is goofy. His hair is as damp and messy as the nest of heather in this den, though Kevin has a suspicion that if he runs his fingers through it a few times it’ll go back to being fetchingly tousled. “Kevin likes?”

“Kevin likes sleep more.” He turns away, only to jump a little when Sam presses his face against his back. Just like Sam said he wanted to. Not that it feels bad to have someone’s cheek and nose resting at the dip of his back, nosing just above the curve of his waist. It feels the opposite of bad. “Did you go for a run already?”

Sam’s fingertips trail a line down Kevin’s side. His cheek is warm at the curve of Kevin’s hip, his breath cool. “No. Thought I’d ask if you wanted to join me.”

“Gimme a sec.” Now that Kevin’s more awake he registers the pleasant ache in his thighs, evidence of last night’s exertion. That said, Sam must be feeling it more, and pleasure curls low in Kevin’s groin at the thought. “I learn things quickly.”

Sam’s still tracing shapes into Kevin’s skin. “Yes, you do.”

“I – I’m sharp, I think. I notice things. I’m decent at problem-solving.”

Sam makes a questioning sound. “What are you saying?”

“You’ll let me court you back, right?” Kevin kinda wanted to look Sam in the eye when he said this, but at the moment his priority is not dislodging him from his current perch. “I think I’d be good at it.”

Sam starts to say something, but then stops. It’s silent in the burrow, Sam thinking quietly and Kevin now wide awake. Kevin thinks that Sam was about to say that he doesn’t need to do that, but then he’d – changed his mind? Wondered why Kevin would even want to do that, and come to the obvious conclusion, which is that he _wants_ to?

“Don’t pretend you know how this would work,” Kevin says. “’Cause you don’t.”

Sam laughs. “You’re right. You’re right! This is new to me, too.”

“Awesome. Now we can both fumble around while we figure it out.”

This is nothing like what Kevin thought he’d have. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Even living the way they do, life finds ways to slip twists into his expectations. He’d feared the necessity of mating and found this instead, which feels precious and worth protecting despite its selfishness in the face of what their species needs. Kevin’s unsure whether to be sad over the children he won’t sire if this becomes something permanent, but that’s something to think about later. That’s something he _can talk about with Sam_ later because he knows, with sudden clarity, that Sam will be up for talking about it. Sam won’t shy away from it, and there’s a breathtaking security in being sure of such a thing.

“Kevin,” Sam says quietly. “I think you’ve already guessed, but… the people I’ve been with before, it’s never turned out well.”

Kevin reaches blindly behind him, finding a bony joint he thinks is Sam’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “But you still want to try.”

“Yes.” After everything he’s been through before, after everything that Kevin hopes to someday learn about, Sam still wants to try.

“I’m honored,” Kevin says, and he feels Sam exhale against his skin. “So that’s a yes, right?”

“It’s a yes.”

* * *

So now their pack, already a hodge-podge mix of wolves, can boast one semi-mated pair that can’t procreate. Kevin thinks it’s kinda poetic, actually – there’s happiness to found inside the sadness (or _despite_ the sadness), and it’s not like this pack was ever going to match the ideal, if such an ideal can even exist. The leviathan have been trying for years to find the best combination of wolves, and even if they got close, they must’ve pushed too hard. Wolves are just people, and people aren’t neat.

Sam, Dean and Jody continue to take senior precedence when they bother, which isn’t often. Charlie proposes a round robin night where everyone gets a turn of thirty seconds to add on to the story being old. Krissy bonds quickly with Dean and Charlie, but she’s quieter than both, spending more time by herself (which Kevin understands).  Aaron carves out his own private space, and stands up to Meg when she figures a little hazing will do him some good. Castiel talks to everyone and everything and seems perfectly content, and sometimes when they think no one’s watching Dean lets Castiel scratch his stomach. Jody’s own baggage rears his head when she’s around Krissy, necessitating Sam’s mediation when it goes too far, but it turns out all right.

It’s functional. It’s warm some days, cold others, and the pack is just large enough for the push and pull to keep an equilibrium.

“What do you think the leviathan think about us?” Kevin asks one day.

“Hmm?” Sam is lying on the ground, his head in Kevin’s lap. He’s awake, although his eyes are closed. It’s unusually warm today, so most of them are underground, save Charlie and Jody who are in the dipping pool. “You mean us a species?”

“I mean us as a pack. They study us, right? What conclusions do you think they reach?”

Sam snorts faintly. He’s more sensitive about this topic than Kevin is, which Kevin figures ties back to how differently they were raised. Kevin’s used to being watched by leviathan all the time, and never quite developed the concept of self-privacy that Sam’s been trying to explain to him. Sam’s absolutely banished all talk of this when they’re inside either of their burrows, as though to not speak of it is to pretend those spaces are completely theirs. Kevin respects that, though he doesn’t completely understand it.

“I have no idea,” Sam says. “I hope we confuse ‘em.”

“But they brought Meg and Castiel back, despite their history with you and Dean,” Kevin says. “You’d think they _wouldn’t_ do that if they wanted to rebuild the pack and start fresh. And you’d think they’d take me away, put me in another pack to mix with other females.”

Sam opens his eyes to squint at Kevin. “What are you thinking?”

“Maybe they’re watching how we react. The previous plans didn’t work, so they’re trying something new.”

“Maybe it’s just pity.”

“Could be,” Kevin says neutrally.

It’s spring, another season to bring change with it. Kevin isn’t on edge, precisely, but there’s a stillness in the enclave that feels like the drawing in of a deep breath.

* * *

When the mating season does arrive, it goes pretty much as Kevin expected. Kevin stays underground for the first two days because a second-wave rut hits him like a belated shockwave. That’s a bummer, but on the very upside he and Sam discover that having a couple of fingers inside him actually makes his knot very happy, who knew.

By the time Kevin leaves his burrow it’s to the temporary administration of Castiel, who apparently only knows what the rut feels like in theory, and is happily helping Sam manage the pack’s supplies and making sure that all who are holed up in their burrows are okay and well-stocked.

“You should chew on this,” Castiel says, handing Kevin a thick stalk of celery. “It will help with your blood circulation.”

Kevin bites down on the celery and flicks his tail in a thank you before sprawling down on the grass. He can smell Meg nearby but she’s been extra grumpy and snappish, so it’s best so stay out of her way. Krissy is up a tree, apparently enjoying having full access to the whole enclave while almost everyone else is under the weather.

“You can see the top of the cage from here!” Krissy calls out, pointing upward. “If, if you could build something to climb the glass… climb up the sides, with the grooves, you could reach it.”

Castiel shakes his head. “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Have any of you guys even tried?”

“Yes,” Sam says, wandering in with an armful of branches. “Me and Cas did, once.”

Krissy stares down at them. After a while she jumps down from the tree and accepts the stalk of celery Castiel hands her. “Guess that answers that question.”

“It was my idea,” Castiel says. He turns away and for a moment seems older, more solemn – a different wolf, or maybe the wolf he used to be. But then he turns back and is smiling again. “Celery also helps with your digestion.”

Kevin reaches out when Sam passes by him, flicking the corner of his belt. “Is that why Dean, um… Why Dean’s been mad at Cas? ‘Cause Cas put both of you in danger?”

“Yeah,” Sam says quietly. “Actually we put the whole pack in danger. Or what was left of it. Dean wanted to ride out the fighting, but me and Cas, we just… we thought we’d try our luck. Didn’t work out, and um… Cas got hurt shorting out the security system, and that’s when we got caught. I’m still grateful they didn’t take me away again.”

Kevin turns back to Castiel, who is now telling Krissy about the different kinds of plants he has in his herb garden.

It isn’t surprising that Krissy would think of escape. She doesn’t talk much about her old pack beyond that they lived in a stone den similar to the one Charlie came from, but her longing is familiar enough. Castiel may be living evidence of what happens to those who try to escape, but Krissy still asks questions over the next few days, once the rest of them start ambling out of their dens one by one, tired but relieved. Krissy asks the others about how transfers work between packs, what other habitats there are out there, that sort of thing.

Dean does his best to shut that down without revealing too much about the pack’s history. This is her habitat now, and the rest of them will do their best to make it a home, if that’s what she wants. Krissy is young enough to dream, though, and Kevin still sees her gazing at the walls sometimes. In some ways, Aaron settles into the enclave better than Krissy does.

It’s because of Krissy’s hyperawareness of the walls that she’s the one who sounds the alarm when one of the doors opens without ceremony. She howls, her strong voice containing a timbre of warning that has the fur along Kevin’s spine standing up.

Normally a siren accompanies the opening of any of the doors, telling the pack that leviathan or new wolves are coming in. There is no siren this time, only Krissy.

By the time Kevin gets to the scene Sam and Dean are already sniffing around the open door. Beyond the opening is a dark, silent hallway of cool air and dead metal. There is no sign of leviathan workers – no sounds, not even their non-scent. Sam is perplexed and cautious, tapping his forepaws on the ground near the door to test for security measures. Dean growls at the others to stay back.

This is new. Even for these veteran wolves, this is new.

“What is it?” Charlie whispers.

“Maybe they all died,” Krissy whispers back. “A leviathan apocalypse wiped them out. And the whole world’s a wasteland.”

Charlie gives her a look.“You need to have a turn on story night.”

The open door is ominous and confusing. Staring at it yields no answers, which seems to offend and annoy Sam. The pack stays in a loose semi-circle around the door, waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. Castiel is the first to lose interest and wander off. Aaron is next, and then Meg.

“We should set up a watch,” Kevin says. “Take turns keeping guard on the door.”

“Or I could just sit here until a sumbitch tries to get the jump on us,” Dean says.

“Dean volunteers to go first,” Sam says. “There should be two of us, in case something does come through.”

But nothing comes through. The day wears on, and the door stays open and unchanging. Even Dean has to leave his post to pee eventually, and then they spend some time figuring out a proper roster for who should stand watch. There are plenty of volunteers, so there’s no problem there.

The real problem, to Kevin at least, is how the open door kicks their collective imaginations into overdrive. Why is the door open, who opened it, is it a flaw in the system, is it another puzzle? Sam and Jody seem to think it’s a test, deliberately hot on the heels of Krissy’s blatant checking out of the enclave’s structural flaws. Meg finds the whole thing uninteresting and says that the leviathan will be along at any moment to fix it, and they should just stop angsting about a fucking _door_ already.

Kevin isn’t afraid of the open door. It piques his curiosity, even makes him excited a little for its implications. It’s something new in a series of new things that have been happening to the pack. Assuming it isn’t a malfunction, it will precede something else.

The door stays open.

* * *

“It’s changing us,” Kevin says.

It’s been a week since the door opened, and it's stayed that way. No one has dared venture through the open doorway, and if it _is_ a test, Kevin has no idea whether they’ve passed or failed it. It isn’t his or Sam’s turn for watch duty but the door is within sight, and like so often lately, it has leaked into Kevin’s thoughts.

“What is?” Sam asks.

“The door. We’re more alert.”

“We’re wolves, we’re always aware of our surroundings,” Sam says. “Not everything that happens has to have a reason behind it.”

“Nothing wrong with thinking about it, though. It’s fun to wonder, you know?” Kevin’s face goes warm at the look Sam gives him, questioning and intense.

“You’re full of so much hope,” Sam says, almost wistfully. “I can actually remember what that’s like.”

Whatever Sam had been about to say next, it’s cut off by Jody’s sudden howl. Kevin sits up with a jolt, while Sam rolls over into his four-legged form, ready to attack. A second howl has them running to the door, where Jody is blocking the doorway while Dean is grappling with Charlie.

“That’s my _mom_ ,” Charlie is shouting, pushing against Dean frantically. “I know her, I’d know her scent anywhere, please!”

“Charlie,” Dean says, “you know it’s some kind of trick—”

“I don’t care!”

Sam scents the opening, careful not to step beyond the threshold. His ears flatten against his head, not in fear but in recognition of living smells. Kevin is about shift out when he catches a scent so rich and familiar that it has him rooted to the spot in disbelief.

“Mom,” Kevin says. “That’s… That’s my mom.”

“See,” Dean says soothingly, still trying to get Charlie to calm down. “It can’t be your mom _and_ Kevin’s mom. It’s some kind of hormonal test thing. Tell them, Meg!”

Meg, who has trotted up, scents the air. “Smells like live wolves to me.”

“Gee, thanks,” Dean grumbles.

Jody hasn’t moved from her post guarding the door, and eyes Kevin warily when he approaches. She will put him down if she needs to, he knows. But that’s Kevin’s _mother_ , her scent living and fresh, and, _god_ , he misses her so much. He’s missed her every single day but that ache has been manageable, a constant background itch that he doesn’t let himself dwell on too much, though it rises up now like teeth sinking into his jugular.

“I’m going in,” Kevin says. Sam growls, stepping in next to Jody to block his path. Charlie stops struggling, and turns wide, hopeful eyes to Kevin.

“No,” Dean says. “No fucking way.”

“I didn’t ask you!” Kevin snaps. “Yes, it could be a trick, but this is my _mother._ This is Charlie’s mother! Wouldn’t you do the same if you smelled yours? Jody, what if it was your… what if it was someone in your birth pack?”

“If I smelled my mom,” Dean says dryly, “I’d hope to fuck that someone held my ass back from doing something stupid.”

Charlie’s voice is low and dangerous when she says, “I will never _ever_ forgive myself if I had to chance to see my mom again and didn’t take it. I’d never forgive you either, Dean.”

Even Dean can’t suppress his wince at that declaration.

The scents are strong. They could be fake, but they are strong, and Kevin could almost weep at how close they are. There are other living scents, too, though those are unfamiliar around the thread of recognition that Kevin itches to track down to its source.

“I will take the chance that it’s a trick,” Kevin says. “Let Charlie come with me.” Sam growls his displeasure.

“I’ll go with them,” Meg says. “Could use another set of teeth if it all goes south.”

“You are not helping!” Dean says.

Kevin reaches out for Charlie, who slips her hand into his. Charlie is calm now, her eyes steady and alight. The worst of it would be that it’s a cruel joke to see how they’d react, testing the hierarchy of the pack and the ability of its middle tier members to push their cause. Kevin doesn’t care, though – and he knows Charlie doesn’t either. They must try.

“Cas is coming with,” Meg says.

“The hell you talking about?” Dean asks.

Castiel, four-legged and scratching behind his ear, peers up at Meg and Dean. Meg pats the back of Castiel’s head and says, “He wants to help.” When Dean starts to argue, Meg pokes at his chest firmly. “You are not alpha. As far as these kids are concerned, they’re their own alphas.”

Dean glances over at Sam and Jody. The fur on Jody’s spine is still up, but her teeth are no longer on display. She tilts her head back and scents the air deeply, her ears flicking. Sam turns to look down the opening, his tail swishing.

“And you’d go down with them?” Dean asks.

Meg shrugs. “Better than having to deal with their faces if you don’t let ‘em.”

Krissy clears her throat, drawing the group’s attention. “If you’re going, shouldn’t you have a plan?”

Sam sits back on his haunches, Dean presses a hand to his forehead, and Castiel barks hopefully.

“Finally,” Meg says, “someone who knows how to speak sense.”

* * *

After a lengthy discussion where voices were raised only a handful of times, the pack moves together as a hunting group through the door. Jody is on point and Dean taking the rear, the rest of them in the middle minding with their ears, eyes and noses.

Kevin’s first thought is that it’s a puzzle. Beyond the open doorway is a long, bare hallway with doors at intervals and rotating fans near the ceiling. There are no signs of leviathan save from the wear in the floor where they must have walked. The group moves together through hallway, sniffing at doors and listening for sounds.

It would make sense if this was a maze puzzle, like the ones that he and Sam have talked about before. It would be the first time for both of them where the reward has been _other wolves_ , but that’s not impossible, is it?

This would be 100% more exciting if it wasn’t Kevin and Charlie’s mothers that they’re tracking. But maybe that’s the point. It’s easier to be clinical about a task when it’s just task, but now it’s personal, and Kevin needs to pause once or twice to press his nose against Sam’s shoulder to calm himself down.

They find their moms in the third room down the hallway, locked in individual carriage containers just like the one Kevin was brought here in. Kevin goes straight to the second container, drawn by Mom’s bitter sharp scent, the evidence of her stress. The room itself is a strange sight – various pieces of equipment lie around the room haphazardly, and one of the container doors is partially open. It’s almost as though the leviathan left the place in a hurry.

Mom’s container has a lock on it, which Sam breaks with his teeth, though the door itself doesn’t have enough give for its inhabitants to slip out. Kevin is right there when the opening is wide enough for her voice to be audible – “Kevin?” He reaches blindly into the box, where his hand is immediately clutched at by familiar fingers.

“Be calm,” Mom says. “Don’t panic. You can do this.”

It’s Meg and Dean who figure out the pulley mechanism that opens the container doors all the way. Gertrude is asleep in hers, so Sam goes two-legged to carry her in his arms. As for Mom, she’s wide awake and squeezes out of the container straight into Kevin’s arms.

Kevin’s stomach lurches at the sight of her. Though her eyes are alert, she is pale and poorly groomed. That said, her grip is the same as it’s always been, as evidenced in the way she hauls him in for a hug.

“ _Kevin_ , my boy. Oh god, thank you.” Mom is doing her best not to cry, which just makes it worse for Kevin, really. His nose is getting up to some embarrassing leakage, but he doesn’t give a shit because _Mom is here._

“How…” Kevin takes a deep breath. “How are you here?”

“I have no idea. The others have been moved on. You were the first but the others started being taken as well – Kate, Brian… Channing was the last, a few weeks ago. I didn’t know what they were going to do with me, if they were going to give me new orphans to raise, but…” She trails off, shaking her head in wonder and disbelief. “My boy.”

“I know this is a big moment,” Sam says gently, “but we need to get back.”

“Of course,” Mom says. She’s about to turn away but stops suddenly to frown up at Sam. Her nostrils flare, Sam’s cheeks go slightly red, and Kevin realizes that he’d totally forgotten about… about _that_. When Mom turns back to him, it’s so that she can cup his cheek in her hand. Her eyes are solemn and gentle. “My brave boy.”

The hallway is unchanged when they retrace their steps back to the enclave. It’s all quiet and still, and no one jumps out to stop them.

For the moment, Kevin is relieved about this. Mom gasps when she sees the green of the enclave, and Kevin lets go of her gently so she can walk on the grass by herself. Aaron and Krissy, who are waiting for them with fresh bandages, are surprised to see them return to so quickly.

“Were they just around the corner or what?” Krissy asks.

“Something like that,” Kevin says.

“No injuries either,” Meg says. “Just new additions.”

“Oh that’s good,” Aaron says with relief. “Would’ve been a bummer to be the only wolves left.”

“But you’d get to keep all our crap,” Meg says. “Win, win.”

Gertrude is still unconscious, so Charlie and Sam head straight for the heart of the enclave where the burrows are. Kevin expects the door to close now but it still doesn’t, instead staying open and taunting. Dean sits near the mouth, automatically taking post to watch it.

“That’s Krissy and Aaron,” Kevin says. Mom is leaning heavily against him, finally giving in to her exhaustion now that they’re in wolf space. “They’re the newest. Well, the newest just before you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mom says. “Linda.”

Krissy smiles. “Glad to see that you’re real, Linda.”

“So this is your habitat, huh?” Mom says. “Not bad. You gonna show me around? Gotta make sure that you pups know what you’re doing.” She smiles up at Kevin, and for a moment it’s as though the past few months never happened – that they’re still living in the capsules, Mom is still in charge, and Channing is just in the next room over, and it is all simple. _Simpler._

But the past few months did happen, this is Kevin’s pack, and Mom is the new wolf here today. Kevin takes her hand, unsure if his chest is able to contain the gratitude swelling in it, and clears his throat.

“Okay,” Kevin says. “Grand tour, starting with the burrows.”

“Yours, too?” Mom asks with a grin. “What? Just because you have a mate now I can’t make sure if you’re taking care of yourself?”

“Not mated yet!” Kevin yelps.

Behind them Dean tries to cover his laugh with a cough.

* * *

Despite her threat, Mom gives Kevin and Sam plenty of space. She inspects the enclave thoroughly and then picks her own burrow a comfortable distance away from Kevin’s and Sam’s, quietly excited to have a new space to make her own. Mom’s also surprised when Kevin tells her he and Sam don’t have a shared den, and instead sleep over at either one whenever they feel like it.

Mom doesn’t press the issue, or delve into the details of their relationship beyond a firm, “Are you taking care of him? Is he taking care of you?” and taking Kevin at his word when he says yes to both.

Kevin does feel kind of bad for Sam at first, because he couldn’t have expected to have to deal with Mom’s sneaky questions during dinner and stalking him around the enclave to sate her curiosity.

That night, when they’ve retreated to Sam’s burrow to sleep, Kevin brings it up and Sam just shakes his head and says, “Hey, no, don’t apologize for that. I’m glad she’s here. It would’ve been amazing just to meet her, from everything you’ve told me about her, and this is… this is amazing.”

Then there’s the matter of sex. Kevin reaches for Sam because, hey, he’s still got residual energy from the puzzle run rescue and would like to burn it off in the most fun way he knows, but Sam flails at him a little and mutters, “Dude, your mom’s here.”

“Not in this den, she isn’t,” Kevin points out.

“So?” Sam counters. “She’s in the same habitat. She’s gonna know.”

“Sam, I’m pretty sure she already knows.” Kevin should not find Sam’s mortification adorable. He doesn’t always get Sam’s concepts of privacy, what with having lived the majority of his life in a box with his immediate family, but he’s slowly learning. “She’s gonna be here for a while, it looks like. Does this mean we’re never having sex again _ever_?”

“Oh my god,” Sam chokes.

Apparently the way to soothe Sam’s self-consciousness is to let him to put his hand over Kevin’s mouth when they fuck. It’s a whole other shade of ridiculous, really – Sam has Kevin’s legs in the air as he thrusts into him, but Sam’s face has a strange mix of sheepishness, arousal and panic on it, as though _he’s_ the kid doing something naughty here. Kevin doesn’t mean to laugh, but he does, and Sam gurgles helplessly at whatever ripple that causes through Kevin’s muscles, and then Sam’s fucking him even harder to get him to orgasm already, _please._

Kevin has no idea if it keeps the noise down, but he comes pretty hard, so he’s not complaining.

“You’re the worst,” Sam says afterward, when their sweat has cooled enough that they can cuddle effectively.

“You do realize I’ve had to deal with your brother, right?” Kevin says. “It’s the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t,” Sam protests. “Dean just makes dirty jokes.”

“Wait ‘til Mom starts telling hers.”

Sam stares at Kevin for a moment, and then bursts out laughing. It’s one of the best sounds in the world. But what Sam says next incites a shudder in Kevin’s chest: “She kind of… She reminds me of _my_ mom.”

That is huge. _Huge._ Sam starts to add something else but seems unable to form the words, so Kevin draws him into a hug. Sam breathes shakily against his neck, somehow able to sound apologetic in the way he breathes. Kevin tells him that it’s okay, and that he can tell him everything about his mom later, if he wants.

“Yes,” Sam says quietly. “Thank you.”

The next day, when Kevin trots out of the den to find breakfast, he is greeted by sight of Sam sitting by the stream while Mom combs his hair. They’re talking softly, Sam tilting his head back a little so Mom can get thread her fingers through the strands at his temple. Sam’s eyes are closed and Mom is smiling. Beyond them Krissy and Jody are up in a tree while Castiel, too big to climb, circles the trunk restlessly. The smell of breakfast wafts over from the clearing – Meg should be in charge today, and Kevin thinks he can hear other voices as well.

Kevin is happy. The knowledge of it is a strange weight under his ribcage. Sure, he’s still on edge thanks to the changes going on in the enclave, and the pack is still freaking weird, and he has no idea where this thing with Sam is going, but he is _happy_.

* * *

The arrival of the two new wolves of a slightly more senior disposition makes for some mild adjustments in the pack dynamics, though in Mom’s case years of being in charge has left her quite happy to roll with her new pack’s routine. She seems to revel in being the newbie for once, and takes to the pack’s social structure with relish.

As for Gertrude, she wakes up soon enough and seems to be fine. She and Charlie mostly keep to themselves for the first few days, and goodness knows they have plenty to catch up on. Dean is also kind enough not to say aloud what everyone is thinking – there is always an agenda behind the leviathan’s moving wolves around.

Kevin doesn’t disagree with this, but he doesn’t view it the way that Sam and his brother do. The leviathan may not be benevolent guardians, but they aren’t entirely malicious either. Perhaps Mom and Gertrude have served their function as effective parents, and are now rewarded by being returned to their only living offspring.

Then there’s the matter of the door. Kevin expects it to close now that it’s released its treasures, but the grand metal opening stays as it is. They continue the rotating watch, making sure that the pack is guarded at all times, but as the days pass and Gertrude starts spending more time aboveground, nothing else comes through. There are no new scents, no new noises, no leviathan.

“Well, we know it was a test,” Meg says. They’ve all gathered in the clearing waiting for the full moon to rise, though Jody is missing since she’s on door watch. “The only thing we don’t know is if we passed or failed.”

“Come on, Meg, you’re just guessing,” Dean says. “You don’t _know_ that it was a test. The rooms looked abandoned, or something. It was weird.”

“Okay, sunshine, _my_ vote is that it was a test, and I will bet you a dozen imaginary loin chops that it was.” Meg rolls her eyes when Dean makes a face at her. “Leviathan don’t let things happen by accident. That’s sloppy.”

“They could get sloppy,” Krissy says, a bit too hopefully. “I mean, that’s what you’ve been saying, right? They’re just... creatures. Like us but not, and they can make mistakes?”

“And if it was a test,” Castiel says thoughtfully, “why is the door still open?”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Dean says.

Mom chimes in, “The way I see it, if it _was_ a test, then it makes sense that it would’ve been unusual. A test for a wolf is usually straightforward – the problem and its goal are usually clear. But a test for the pack would be studying how you’d react as a team, and how you’d work together in dealing with it.”

“But they know how we work together,” Sam says. “They’re watching us all the time. _Living_ together is working together.”

“Living together can just mean tolerance,” Castiel says.

“Precisely,” Mom says. “They got to see if you’d work together for something that wasn’t directly beneficial to the pack’s well-being.”

Aaron raises a hand cautiously. “Uh, can I say something? Okay.” He clears his throat and sits up, oddly formal in the loose circle they’ve formed in the clearing. “I still consider myself new—” he sighs when Dean and Meg applaud helpfully, “—but even though I’m getting used to the place, you gotta admit that this pack is weird.”

“That’s what I said,” Charlie says.

“Ugh.” Dean shakes his head. “It’s like I don’t even know you.”

“Oh come on,” Kevin protests. “They probably dropped Aaron and Krissy here to see if we’d reject them for being too pedestrian. This _is_ a weird pack.”

Meg snorts. “ _You_ have a mate. Shut up.”

“What?” Kevin says. “I’m not allowed to complain about anything anymore?”

Charlie reaches over and pats Kevin’s arm. “Yes.”

“Please don’t,” Dean says with a groan. “This is totally my opening to make an inappropriately sexual joke but, one, that’s my brother involved, and two, his mom’s right there, dude.”

“See, this is what I mean!” Aaron exclaims. “This pack is _totally_ unbalanced. I mean, Gertrude, you’re awesome, thank you for teaching me how to do those basket things, those are pretty cool—” Gertrude lifts her head off her paws and yips a quiet acknowledgment, “—but this is totally not what I was told a working pack is supposed to look like me.”

“Then maybe it’s time to redefine what a working pack is supposed to look like,” Mom says. “Who else can do it but wolves still in their prime?”

“And the ones who remember the ways it used to be,” Krissy adds.

Kevin feels a shiver move up his spine. He assumes that leviathan are always watching the enclave, but he wonders if they’re actively watching right now, and what they can possibly understand from the council being held today.

He says, “I think we can all agree that it was weird, whether it was a test or not.”

Through the clear glass ceiling the moon is drifting towards its zenith. They keep talking as they follow the rise, but the chatter eventually dies down when the moon’s call grows stronger, drawing them to their four-legged forms. Dean wanders off for a while, apparently anti-social for the night. Krissy bounds on top of a rock to get a better view. Gertrude’s eyes are closed but her tail flicks in contentment when Charlie crawls over to lie on top of her.

Tonight, Kevin feels strong and sure. It’s not just because Mom is right there, or because Sam is pressed against his side. It’s that, plus everything else, _everyone_ else, including the wolves Kevin doesn’t know very well but has the chance to. It’s the taste of newness in the air, and how the uncertainty of the future feels less frightening now than it had been a handful of months ago.

Over from the watch post, Jody looses the first howl. Sam stands up and howls back, and then one by one they’re filling the enclave with song. Meg and Castiel even join in, and Castiel’s voice vibrates the nearby leaves a little.

* * *

Not too long after, the supplies stop. No packages come through the delivery doors, no small prey are released through the controlled chutes. At first they dismiss it as a delay, but when three supply drops don’t happen when they’re supposed to, even Kevin’s go-to reasoning that they’re too valuable for the leviathan to let die out starts to ring hollow.

“I’m telling you,” Krissy says, “the leviathan are dead. We’re alone in here.”

Charlie snorts. “That isn’t nearly as comforting as you think it is. Anything that can wipe out the leviathan could very likely wipe us out, too.”

“Maybe being inside the enclave is keeping us safe,” Sam suggests. “Dean, how’s the larder doing?”

“We got maybe… another three weeks’ worth?” Dean says. “I could stretch it more if we need to, but the pack is larger than it used to be.”

“There are still some fish in the pool,” Jody says. “It’ll help.”

“And there’s Castiel’s herb garden,” Meg adds.

Castiel perks up. “The carrots are very good.”

The pack continues to discuss the issue, working out a rationing program to make sure that everyone gets fed. Kevin listens with half an ear, more interested in looking around the enclave. The trees are still green and the stream’s water clear, but there’s a new fragility to the place that wasn’t there a handful of minutes ago. Whatever environmental system the leviathan set up must still be functioning, but for how long?

 “What I don’t get,” Charlie says, “is how the supplies have still been coming in after the door opened.”

“Maybe the supplies are automated,” Kevin says. “That could be part of how they keep this place running, because it can’t all be hands-on, that’d be so much work. If something bad happened outside, the door could have popped open as part of their safety mechanism, just in case a leviathan was inside the enclave at the time and needed to get out. And the supplies would keep coming until they ran out.”

Mom makes a thoughtful sound. “It would explain why me and Gertrude were left in the containers instead of being released into the enclave properly.”

Kevin jumps a little at the touch of Sam’s hand at his waist. He turns to look up at Sam, whose eyebrows are pinched with worry. No doubt he’s already thinking about what kind of future the pack can have if its resources are finite. Yes, it is terrifying, but there are a clever, stubborn bunch, and they can manage something. Kevin covers Sam’s hand with his own and squeezes comfortingly.

They can plan and negotiate. They will not panic.

* * *

Kevin knows it’s time to worry when Meg stops insisting it’s a test. They’re still doing okay three weeks after the supply deliveries stop, but an understandable gloom has befallen the enclave. Meg goes quiet and thoughtful, Dean tries to pretend he’s taking his share of the hoarded food when he isn’t, and Jody becomes more upfront about her interest in the door.

Jody calls the pack to the clearing, insisting that everyone has to be there for their say.

“Some of you have been thinking it, but I’m going to say it,” Jody says. “We have to raid the facility.”

“It’s dangerous,” Sam says.

“I know it’s dangerous,” Jody replies easily, “which is why all of us have to be here to weigh the risks. The water and air’s good. We can clean ourselves, and tend to ourselves when we’re sick or injured. We can still make our own things and recycle where we can, that’s not a problem. But we are going to run out of meat.”

“We can survive without meat,” Charlie says.

“Actually,” Castiel starts, “your bodies can’t produce all the nutrients they need, and some of them have to come from meat. When I say ‘your bodies’ I am referring to all of you, including Meg. I’ll survive because I’m biologically designed to overcome that flaw.”

“Would be lonely here by yourself, Cas,” Dean says.

“Yes,” Castiel says.

The fact remains that there is an opportunity in that open door, and they need to decide whether to use it. It’s a divisive topic, especially when Sam speaks up about the time he and Cas tried to break out of the enclave.

“There are other creatures here,” Sam says. “If our door is open, theirs probably is, too. We don’t know what’s wandering around out there. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it, I’m just… giving you all the information.”

“So you’re _for_ doing it?” Jody presses.

“I think it’s worth trying,” Sam says carefully. “But if it goes wrong, whoever’s left behind is… going to have a tough time.”

There’s the crux of it, really. Sam, Dean, Jody and Meg are probably the best to go on a raid, but they’re also the strongest of the pack and losing them would be a huge blow. Kevin definitely wants to go; he ignores Sam’s annoyed scowl and insists that he join, if only because he can read leviathan. Castiel volunteers, pointing out that he has the most sensitive nose, and can help carry things.

“I’ll stay,” Meg says. “Someone’s got to make sure Linda doesn’t steal from the larder.”

“Hey,” Mom protests.

“You should stay,” Dean says, turning to Sam. “Watch the rest of the pack.”

Sam sighs. “I’ve actually been _in_ the facility. It’s better if I go.”

Krissy chimes in, “If Sam has to stay, can I go?”

“No!” Jody and Dean say in unison.

While the wolves argue, Kevin looks at the hallway beyond the open door. The passageway is dark, an abandoned cavern that leads off to who the hell knows where. If they’re right, and the enclave is no longer under the control of the leviathan, then everything they do from this point is without a safety net. Whatever good or bad that happens will be entirely on them.

Kevin finds, to his surprise, that he’s okay with this. Oh, he doesn’t like the idea of splitting the pack, and he’ll be fucking pissed if anyone gets hurt, but having an actual choice isn’t as intimidating as he thought it might be. He will do his best, just like Jody, Sam, Dean and Castiel will do their best. He trusts his pack, as temperamental as it can be.

It’s a comforting thought to have in the midst of all of this.

“Make up your damn minds,” Kevin says, loud enough to bring the bickering to a halt. “Frankly, I think the rest of the pack can manage as it is. What d'you think?”

“We’ll be fine,” Meg says.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Charlie adds.

“Okay,” Kevin says, “and the rest of us, we’re a hunting party, right? Jody’s the lead, Castiel’s taking point, Sam and Dean are tanks, and I make sure nobody does anything stupid. Sounds good?”

“Man,” Dean fake-whispers to Sam, “you sure like ‘em mouthy.”

“Shut up,” Sam mutters.

“Will you let me join the next raid?” Krissy asks.

“Yes, Krissy,” Jody says, “you can join the next raid if _this one_ goes well. That good enough for now?”

Krissy nods thoughtfully. “That’ll do.”

* * *

The raid starts out well enough. The hallway has a door at the far end that leads deeper into the leviathan facility, which appears as abandoned as the rooms that preceded it. Their hunting group is cautious, no one interested in taking unnecessary risks on their way to find usable supplies. Their first successful hit is a locked store room that Sam manages to figure out how to open, revealing boxes upon boxes of dry items.

“We can’t take everything, so we should leave most of it for now,” Jody says. “Take string and cloth, whatever’s really needed. Our priority is still food.”

They rummage through the boxes, finding handfuls of trinkets that they put in their pockets before moving on. Castiel is the only one of the group who’s shifted out, his nose on duty as he tries to find them something worth taking.

When they reach a staircase, Castiel stops, sniffing the air.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asks. “Other beasties down there?”

Castiel bobs his head in the affirmative, though doesn’t seem afraid, just curious and cautious. He glances over at Jody, who says, “If you think we should turn back, we can turn back. But I think we should keep moving as long as we can.”

“Let’s not go down there,” Kevin says.

“You smell something, too?” Jody asks.

“No, it’s…” Kevin looks back the way they came – hallway from another hallway from another row of doors. Now they’re facing a staircase that goes downwards, and it makes sense to take it because it’s the only option before them. “Too linear, I guess.”

“You want to go someplace different?” Sam asks.

Castiel barks. He tilts his head, drawing their attention to the air vents above them.

“Okay,” Jody says with a shrug. “Why not.”

So instead of going down, they go up. Castiel is strong enough to give everyone a boost up on to the ledge just below the air vent, and they spend a couple of minutes trying to open the vent grate. It’s solidly locked, which surprises Kevin a little because the whole journey they’ve made so far, all the doors have been open, or at least easy to figure out.

Castiel’s head whips up when they get the grate open. His ears prick up, apparently hearing something the rest of them can’t, and fur along his spine rises a little.

“What?” Jody asks.

Castiel barks quickly – _go, get in_. He barks again, more urgently, and the rest of them move quickly into the grate, Castiel right behind them.

As they crawl through the narrow space, Castiel shifts, whispering, “I think we set off an alarm.”

“An alarm?” Sam echoes.

“Well, we’re not exactly supposed to be inside an air vent,” Dean says.

“We’re not supposed to be outside the enclave,” Castiel points out. “But there were no alarms earlier.”

“So many things are still working around here,” Jody says, though she’s starting to sound worried. “The lights, the water… Surely some of the alarm systems would still be working, too.”

They move through the vents, navigating a handful of sharp turns that almost make them turn back, except Castiel says he can smell food up ahead. Soon enough the rest of them can, too – there’s dried meat, which makes Kevin’s mouth water – and when they reach another grate they push it open and jump down into the empty room below.

“Oh wow,” Kevin says. Behind him Sam gasps.

This has to be an observation room of some kind. There’s more tables and leviathan equipment, but the entirety of one wall is clear glass, overlooking an enclave that’s similar but not quite like theirs.

This second enclave has grass as well, but the trees are larger and closer together. The undergrowth is thicker, too, creating a dark, shadowed space beneath the canopy. There are creatures moving in there, their voices echoing strangely in the observation room.

Kevin approaches the glass, only stopping at Sam’s soft, “Hey.” He glances at Sam sheepishly and takes a step back.

“What are they?” Jody asks.

“Wendigo,” Dean says. He’s not that all interested in gawking at the enclave, and instead starts poking around the boxes in the room. “A family of them, I’d say. Just like us.”

“Meat,” Castiel calls out from a far corner of the room. He’s found crates of edible materials, which Dean and Jody immediately go over to check out.

“That’s probably theirs,” Jody says.

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Dean says. “They didn’t get to it before us. As far as I figure, that’s their loss.”

While they discuss that, Kevin continues to be mesmerized by the view. This proves everything he’d wondered about the walls of the enclave. The wendigo closest to the glass isn’t paying them any attention, which he knows wouldn’t happen if he could see them. This means that if you’re on this side it’s a window, but if you’re on the other side it’s just solid wall. The leviathan have their cameras for close-ups but this way they can observe the enclave as a whole. It’s amazing. Creepy, but amazing.

“Uh, Kevin?” Sam says.

“Hmm?”

Sam moves close to Kevin’s shoulder, keeping his voice low, “There’s some writing on the table, can you take a look? But don’t _look_ like you’re looking.”

Kevin is confused but goes along, following Sam back to the table where there are sheets of paper with more of the squiggly leviathan writing. Unlike the other patches of writing Kevin’s seen elsewhere, these words are arranged in an unusual geometrical order.

“Numbers,” Kevin says. “One column of numbers, and the second column is… status? It’s just letters. I mean I can _read_ it, but they don’t look like words.”

Sam nods. “I saw something like this back upstairs, in the first room outside our enclave. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but there’s a bunch of words here that are… Okay, how many wendigo are out there?”

“I saw two, but there’s probably more.”

“Look there.”

Kevin follows the jerk of Sam’s head, to where there’s a thick black plate fixed on the wall. It’s circular in shape, and inside the plate are six small red dots. A few of the dots are moving. Kevin glances from the plate to the enclave – where the closest visible wendigo is moving walking around a tree – and back to the plate.

“Six wendigo,” Kevin says. He looks back at the list. “Six numbers.”

Sam nods. “The list I saw upstairs had eleven numbers. I think those numbers were us. Each of us has a number, like an identification.”

“Okay…” Kevin says slowly. “Well, the leviathan monitored us. We know this.”

“Read the lines underneath there. Just – at the bottom of the page right there.”

“Teamwork,” Kevin reads. “Loyalty. Hierarchy. Group… social? Social factor. Adaptability. Improvisation. Decision-making. Survival skills. Response to stress tests one, two, three, so on.”

“Please tell me that I didn’t read that wrong, under the stress tests.”

Kevin frowns. “Change of routine. Change of boundaries. Change of pack order. Individualistic emotional reward, despite potential risk to the well-being pack.” As he goes down the list, the hair at the back of his neck stands up. “Cessation of supplies.”

“Last one, Kevin,” Sam whispers.

“Assessment final score. Result – removal, yes or no.” Kevin looks at Sam in alarm. “Removal?”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” Sam says quietly. “I think the leviathan are still around, and this is another test.”

“Oh.” Kevin’s stomach sinks. “We were supposed to follow the route.”

Sam looks like he’s doing his best not to panic, though Kevin would totally understand if he did because he’s one of the few who actually _did_ try to escape and returned to tell the tale. Wolves who are troublemakers have two choices: stop being a troublemaker or stop being part of the habitat.

This doesn’t count though, right? They’re just being resourceful and creative, and it’s totally obvious that they don’t mean any harm. Sure, the fact that they’ve found another enclave means they’ve seen more than the leviathan meant them to, and is perhaps evidence that the leviathan aren’t as entirely in control of them as they thought, but it’s not like that’s _bad_. Right? Right.

Kevin takes a shaky breath. “Guys? Guys! We need to head back, like, right now.”

Dean straightens up, his arms full of packages. “Dude, we’re just—”

Sam inhales sharply. Kevin reacts just in time to catch Sam when he falls into a dead faint, a tranquilizer dart embedded in his neck.

Dean yells a warning, but the door behind him slides open silently, letting in the dark shadows of living leviathan. Dean starts to turn, but falls over when Castiel pushes him out of the way. Kevin’s never even seen Castiel display his teeth before, but now Castiel shifts to four legs mid-leap, roaring as he attacks the nearest leviathan.

Jody’s gone four-legged, too, and she quickly darts underneath the table to avoid their weapons. She barks at Kevin to join her, but it’s too far.

Kevin shifts out, bares his teeth and growls at the closest leviathan, which is approaching him. Kevin pointedly moves his body over Sam, and lowers himself down into an attack position. He has no idea where the leviathan’s eyes or other vital parts are, but he’ll be happy to bite anything that gets close enough.

The leviathan is holding a weapon, but hasn’t fired yet. It must know that Kevin understands what a weapon is, and it must know that Kevin has decided to not care.

This is not their fault. They’re wild animals, goddammit, and they can’t be punished for not following rules they didn’t even know existed.

There’s a crash on the other side of the room, followed by frantic growls and yelling. From the corner of Kevin’s eye he sees Castiel’s gigantic form fly limply across the room, but he dare not take his eyes off the leviathan drawing ever nearer towards him.

Kevin crouches low against Sam’s supine body and snarls at the leviathan.

The leviathan throws something at him. It’s a rope, but not any kind that Kevin’s seen before. He ducks out of the way before making an attacking leap, claws out and jaw open. There’s a mirroring growl to his side – it’s Jody, taking on another leviathan nearby.

Kevin manages to get his jaws around something hard and bitter. He has no idea what it is but he bites down as hard as he can, thinking – well, this is the point of no return. If he wasn’t going to be punished before, he definitely is now.

Adrenaline seems to slow time down, and in it Kevin’s thoughts bounce around frantically – like what about Mom, Charlie, Meg and the others? The leviathan won’t punish them, right? No, they should be okay, since they’re waiting obediently in the enclave. But what if they split up the pack? And what kind of test has ‘removal’ as a conclusion, anyway? Maybe they were always going to split them up and it was just one of their experiments to see how’d they react, and Kevin _hates_ them, he hates these creatures that only seem to know how to create walls – the kinds you can see and the kinds you can’t. It’s these creatures that brought him Channing, Brian, Michael, then took them away; they brought him Charlie and Dean and Meg, and could take them away, too.

The leviathan didn’t take Kevin away from Sam before, but there is no reassurance that they never will.

Kevin yelps when something sharp jabs into his side. He flails, his claws catching something as he’s shoved away.

His last thought before he falls unconscious is that this was all terribly stupid, but they didn’t do anything _wrong._

* * *

There is no forgetting the smell of a carriage container, or the feel of its hard metal surface against Kevin’s skin.

Kevin jolts awake with a knot of terror in his stomach – he’s being _moved!_ The fuckers actually did it, he’s being taken away to another fucking habitat to start all the fuck over again, _fuck._ Kevin hates everything. He wants to lie here with his eyes closed and nose clogged and hate everything. Fuck it all.

“You’re up,” comes a faint voice. “Hey.”

Kevin opens his eyes. That’s Jody crouching over him and putting a gentle hand on his head. She is alert and healthy, though her hair could use a some grooming.

Other scents slowly trickle in – _Sam_ is nearby. Kevin sits up sharply, only to be knocked over again by the sudden rush of vertigo.

“Whoa there.” Sam is suddenly right in Kevin’s face, his hands on Kevin’s shoulders to steady him. That still isn’t enough so Kevin lets himself tilt forward, pressing his face against Sam’s neck. Sam huffs softly. “Hey.”

Okay, Sam’s here. That’s already 100% more than what Kevin expected at all, and the sheer relief of it has Kevin melting bonelessly against him. Sam takes the hint and puts his arms around Kevin, cradling him gently and stroking the back of his head. Sam murmurs that everything’s going to be okay and they’ll figure this out, and that he’s sorry he got shot with the tranquilizer first but that totally wasn’t his fault. Kevin laughs a little, already feeling better.

“Jody says that you made a valiant attempt to defend me,” Sam says teasingly. “Too bad I missed it.”

“I might have leviathan in my teeth.” Kevin lets Sam tips his head back to study his teeth. This is also a good opportunity for Kevin to be grateful for Sam’s lovely, worried face.

“Looking good,” Sam says.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Kevin snaps. Exasperated, he hooks his hand at the back of Sam’s neck and pulls him for a kiss. It’s not their best kiss, which is partially Kevin’s fault because the inside of his mouth feels like dry burlap, but there’s no reason for Sam to look so stunned when Kevin pulls back.

Kevin’s stomach flips unpleasantly at the way Sam drops his gaze. Unless Kevin’s reading him wrong, there’s surprise and embarrassment and guilt in the way Sam has sudden difficulty looking at him, which makes no sense because why would Sam be at all surprised that Kevin’s so fucking happy that he’s still there?

“What, you thought I’d be cool with it?” Kevin asks quietly. “That I’d be _okay_ with not getting to say goodbye to you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t…” Sam shakes his head, blinking rapidly. “I used to get moved around a lot, I try not get my hopes up too much. I’m sorry, I know that’s messed up, I’m just—”

“Stop.” Kevin bites back the first couple of things he wants to say, because he doesn’t feel magnanimous enough to lie that it’s okay. Oh, he _understands_ it, because their lives are what they are and Sam’s life is what it’s been. Aside from the walls they live in there are also the walls they build inside themselves, so Kevin doesn’t blame him. Kevin hates it, but he can’t blame him. “You would miss me, though?”

Sam’s eyes snap up to meet Kevin’s. Sam’s mouth is pressed tightly closed, as though he cannot or dare not speak his answer. He nods rapidly.

“Okay,” Kevin says.

“I’m sorry,” Sam chokes out. “Kev, I understand if you don’t want to be with—”

“I want to be with you,” Kevin says firmly. “I want to figure this out with you. You’re a good thing, and I’m gonna keep as many good things as I can, for however long I can. Assuming you want to be with me, too, of course.”

Sam bobs his head quickly, almost desperately, and there’s a certain wildness in his eyes, as though he cannot comprehend a world that that’s refused to disappoint him. Sam’s the one who needs a hug now, so Kevin rises up and wraps his arms around his big ol’ wolf who has issues as wide as his shoulders and as large as his heart. They have their work cut out for them, is what it is.

Sam sighs against Kevin’s sternum, and rubs his face against it lightly. “Thank you,” he whispers.

The rumble of machinery beneath the container is faint but pervasive.

Jody is on the other side of the container, politely keeping her face averted. This carriage container is larger than the last one Kevin was in, but the make is similar.

“How long was I out?” Kevin asks.

“I only woke up about an hour before you,” Sam says, voice muffled. “We’re not sure if it’s the same day as the raid, to be honest.”

“What’s that on your ear?”

Sam draws back a little and self-consciously touches the shell of his left ear. There’s a tiny metallic bauble on the helix, and it stays in place even when Sam flicks it with his finger.

“You have one, too,” Sam says. “And Jody. They probably put them on us while we were sleeping.”

“It’s a tracking tag,” Jody says. “I’ve seen them before, but on birds, not wolves.”

Kevin scowls. “Why would they need tracking tags? They have cameras.”

No one has an answer for that. Kevin doesn’t wonder aloud where Dean and Castiel are, either, because goodness knows Sam must already be internally freaking out about that. Kevin would’ve thought that all five of them would be shipped off together, but perhaps the leviathan think that it’s best to split up the most troublesome wolves, lest they infect the new pack they’re being delivered to.

At least, Kevin hopes it’s a new pack they’re going to. He hopes it’s a decent habitat, with wolves that aren’t assholes. He hopes Mom is doing okay. She and Meg will take care of the others. Charlie has her mom, too, so she should be fine. Krissy and Aaron won’t be completely at a loss. Dean and Castiel are resilient, too, so they should be okay wherever they are.

Kevin is so grateful for the past few months.

The three of them are mostly quiet after that. Jody sits close to the door, hoping to catch a scent, any scent. Sam is tired and uninterested in speculation, so he curls around Kevin to nap through most of the journey.

It’s a few more hours before the container finally stops. They get up, standing at the ready when the door opens. Kevin reminds himself that he’s better prepared this time. He isn’t alone this time.

The sudden influx of natural light makes Kevin blink rapidly. When his eyes adjust, the sight before the open door is a clearing with trees, not visually unlike the trees of the enclave, but their scent is… strange. Kevin breathes in deeply, smelling grass, rock and soil, plus the dampness of water.

“Wait,” Jody says. “Is that…?”

Kevin inhales again, and this time he catches wolf scents. Better yet, _familiar_ wolf scents.

Jody exits the container first, inhaling sharply when her feet touch the ground. Kevin understands why when he follows a moment later – this earth feels deeper than the soil of the enclave somehow. It moves under his feet in a different way, and he jumps on it a few times to test the give.

Then Kevin looks up, and he realizes that this isn’t like the clearing of the enclave. There is naked sky above them, no sign of a ceiling. They’re standing on a long… field? Field. It’s a field of grass, bordered by a tall metal fence just behind them. Their carriage container opens directly through the fence somehow. More importantly, their container isn’t the only container.

A couple of yards to the left, Meg, Mom and Aaron are stepping out of a container of their own. Further down are Dean and Castiel, and beyond that Krissy, Charlie and Gertrude.

Everyone’s here. Everyone’s _here_?

“What is this?” Sam asks.

Kevin looks up at Sam in surprise. “You don’t know? _You_?”

Sam sighs and pats the top of Kevin’s head. “Yes, Kevin, sometimes I do not know everything.”

Everyone seems to be as dazed as they are, milling around in quiet bewilderment. Dean breaks the spell by bursting out laughing, and then a ripple of relief and elation passes through the pack. Charlie throws her arms around Dean, which kicks off a chain reaction of hugs right then and there. They’re really here, all of them.

Kevin turns to look up at the fence. There’s a little sign near the top, and he squints to make out the letters.

“Wild…” Kevin reads slowly. “Wildlife… reserve?”

He doesn’t know how he understands what he does of the leviathan’s language, but the mental images that that term conjures up feel too strange to be true. He touches his ear, rolling his fingertip over the tracking tag, and then turns to the tree line in front of them. If there are cameras, tags aren’t necessary. So if there are tags…

Jody is the first to approach the tree line. She shifts out to scent the air, and her ears draw close to her head at what she finds. _Foreign. New._

Kevin follows her, ducking his head to peer through the branches of the trees. It takes him a moment to understand what he’s seeing, but when he does, his breath catches.

Beyond the tree line is grass and growth and more trees than he can count, as far as they eye can see. All Kevin can see in front of him are living colors; there might be metal out there, but the only metal he can see is _behind_ them. The only solid objects to be seen are ruins in the distance, but those buildings appear to be made of stone.

 _Large dens_ , Kevin’s brain supplies. _Dens that can contain whole packs._

The leaves around Kevin rustle when the rest of the pack join them in checking out the view.

“My brain hurts,” Dean whispers. “How is this… How is there so much _space_?”

“This is what those final tests were for,” Kevin says faintly. “It must be. They wanted to see if we could… handle this, I guess.”

Charlie’s voice is soft and reverential when she says, “Open lands. The lands wolves used to be able to roam freely, until the earth got sick and died. I mean, we tell stories about it all the time, I just never thought I’d be able to see... Well. Maybe this is a land that got better.”

“But this is too precious,” Mom says. “We’re not a… productive pack.”

“True, but we’re a strong and clever one,” Kevin says. “Maybe they decided that that’s more important. Sam, those scoring papers we saw? The conclusion was ‘Removal’, wasn’t it? Well, maybe it was referring to this – if we were ready to be removed from the facility.”

There’s a faint hiss behind them, following which a small square of the fence falls open. A handful of canvas bags drop through the opening, and the fence closes up again.

The canvas bags have their personal scents, and they figure out quickly enough that they contain the pack’s things, which they’d thought were left behind in the enclave. It’s not just their blankets, water containers and utensils, but even their personal belongings like Sam’s baskets and Jody’s sculptures, all loosely packed inside unfamiliar canvas bags. They sort through the bags and then tie them to their belts to bring them along.

“Well,” Meg says dryly, “does this mean I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life with you folks?”

“Hell no,” Dean says, “ _you_ don’t get to be the suspicious bastard this time, I’m calling dibs.”

“Oh my god, you guys, just look at the _sky_!” Krissy yells. “Look at it! Smell the freaking trees! Have you ever smelled anything so freaking clean?”

A hush falls over the pack as they take this in. Their eyes, noses and ears confirm this – there is no touch of leviathan here. There’s no trace scent of other wolves or large animals nearby, either. Maybe they’re further up, but this area is unmarked, which means it’s potentially all theirs. Past the tree line the land curves downwards into a glen, with little patches of clearings between the trees and underground. The stone ruins are maybe half a mile away now, an easy running distance. There’s a river down there as well, the water glinting bright with promise.

Even the air moves differently against their skin. It’s such a strange thing.

The leviathan must have planned this for some time. Everyone here has differing histories but the habitats they’ve known are limited to certain types: the enclaves, the capsules, the stone dens, the metal cages. There are only so many types of wolf enclosures – or so it’s been, so for as long as these generations and their oral history know. This is so different they don’t yet have their own word for it.

New territory means new things to discover, new ways to become a pack. It means making it up as they go along and finding new stories to tell.

If they had an alpha pair they’d howl about now. There is no fucking hierarchy in this pack so everyone looks at each other uncertainly until Meg sighs, tilts her head back and howls. Mom snorts and joins her with a howl of her own, and then the pack announces their new song together.

 _We can do this_ , Kevin thinks as he howls. They’re a motley crew of wolves and they’re gonna survive, and thrive, and make their own fucking rules where they can. Kevin knows this, and he is going to make it happen.

Kevin’s vibrating with excitement by the time they’re done tying up their bags. Castiel shifts out and takes point; he’s always been the largest of them all but he seems even bigger now, the fur along his spine raised and claws out where they’re testing the ground. It’s still weird as hell to see him display like this, but Kevin gets it.

There is something about this place, in its rawness and lack of metal corners, that makes Kevin want to show his own teeth and run – not _away_ , but _to._ Perhaps it’s woken up that part in all of them, even Castiel, in whom he’d thought that didn’t exist anymore.

Oh god, Kevin thinks. Oh god, this is really happening, they’re doing an actual pack migration.

Then the pack starts actually running, and it’s fucking _awesome._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has accompanying [art by disreputabled0g](http://disreputabled0g.livejournal.com/2187.html), check it out!
> 
> There's also a Dean/Castiel post-fic timestamp, [The Glen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4626807).


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